Turkey issues warrants for 47 ex-staff of Zaman daily

ANKARA: Turkey issued arrest warrants Wednesday for 47 former staff of the Zaman newspaper, an official said, in a growing crackdown on people suspected of links to alleged coup mastermind Fethullah Gulen.

The official, declining to be named, said the swoop covers "executives and some staff including columnists", describing Zaman as the "flagship media organisation" of the movement led by Gulen, a US-based preacher.

In March, Zaman and its sister English-language newspaper Today's Zaman were taken over by state-appointed administrators and it has since taken a strongly pro-government line. The official insisted the warrants were not related to what individual columnists had previously said or written.

But "prominent employees of Zaman are likely to have intimate knowledge of the Gulen network and as such could benefit the investigation", the official explained. Gulen strongly denies Ankara's accusations that he masterminded the attempted putsch of July 15, since when some 13,000 people have been detained.