Erdogan rival Gulen dies in exile at 83

ISTANBUL: US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who was accused by Ankara of organising a failed 2016 coup, has died in exile in the United States aged 83, his movement and the Turkish government said on Monday.

Gulen, who lived in the United States since 1999, was the bete noire of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who accused him of heading a “terror organisation”. “Our intelligence sources confirm the death of the leader of the FETO organisation,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a press conference, using Turkey´s term for Gulen´s influential Hizmet movement of schools, businesses and charities.

Turkiye´s TRT public television said the preacher, who had lived in Pennsylvania for a quarter of a century and was stripped of his Turkish nationality in 2017, died in hospital overnight. The news was first posted on X by Herkul, Gulen´s website which is banned in Turkiye, saying he died on “October 20”.