Turkey to release 38000 prisoners jailed before coup

However, people convicted of terrorism and other crimes against the state as well as murder, domestic violence, and sexual abuse are not eligible for release under the decree. “The crimes committed after July 1, 2016 are outside its scope”, Bozdag said on Twitter.

It has demanded Washington extradite Gulen so he can face charges in Turkey, drawing a cautious reaction from United States officials who say they need to see clear evidence linking Gulen to the military putsch.

Previously Turkish law requires prisoners to serve two thirds of their sentence before they can appeal for an early release.

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday the United States as a strategic partner should facilitate the extradition of the US -based cleric whom Ankara blames for orchestrating last month’s failed military coup.

Alongside tens of thousands of civil servants suspended or dismissed, more than 35,000 people have been detained in the purge.

Around 187,000 people were held in Turkish prisons in March, according to figures from the country’s justice ministry.

Turkey’s prison population is bursting at the seams with 188,000 recorded prisoners as of March which was already some 8,000 more above capacity according to Reuters.

The leaked government report said Turkey had become a hub for “Islamist” groups and that President Tayyip Erdogan had an “ideological affinity” to Hamas in Gaza, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Erdogan has vowed to choke off businesses linked to Gulen.

A vehicle bombing attack on a police station in the eastern province of Van killed a police officer and two civilians late Wednesday.

US Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Ankara next week, the White House announced, in the highest ranking visit to Turkey by any Western official since the coup.

Amnesty International recently said it had gathered “credible evidence that detainees in Turkey are subjected to beatings and torture, including rape”.

With concern also surging over the authorities’ attitude on press freedom, security forces sealed and raided the premises of the pro-Kurdish daily Ozgur Gundem following a court order to shut it down.

Less than four hours later, a roadside bomb believed to have been planted by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants tore through a military vehicle in the Hizan district of Bitlis province, security sources said.

In Van province, further east, two police officers and one civilian were killed and 73 people were wounded late on Wednesday when a vehicle bomb exploded near a police station, the local governor’s office said in a statement.

“On what has been published in the media, we do not share the assessment as a whole”, said Sawsan Chebli, the spokeswoman of the foreign ministry.