Turkey freezes assets of 770 people, US-based foundation citing terror links

Turkey has frozen the assets of 770 people and a nonprofit organization, citing alleged links to terrorism, according to a ruling published to the country’s official gazette on Friday.

Reuters reported that more than 400 of those individuals and the Niagara Foundation, which is based in Chicago, had their assets frozen due to their alleged connections with Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen. Turkey has accused Gülen of being behind an attempted coup in 2016.

Fethullah Güllen is the honorary president of the Niagara foundation, according to the organization’s website.

The government chose to freeze the individuals’ and foundation’s assets, according to the gazette, because it said it had reasonable grounds to believe they had committed what legal articles refer to as “the crime of financing terrorism” and “acts prohibited from providing or collecting funds,” Reuters reported.

Turkey also froze the assets of more than 100 individuals who were allegedly connected to “terror groups that abuse religion,” including al-Qaeda; more than 100 others who it believed had ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has been outlawed in the country; and 89 people alleged to have links to leftist groups Turkey has designated as terrorist organizations, according to The Associated Press.