(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) By Samie Al-Dulaimi WASHINGTON, July 16 (KUNA) -- The self-exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen has been accused by the Turkish government of leading the failed coup of the country and lodging several attempts for a judicial coup in the past.
Gulen has lived in exile in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania since 1999 and retains a large influence in Turkey and around the world.
He has denied any role in the failed coup, following accusations by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that his followers are to blame.
President Erdogan has demanded that the US extradite the influential cleric back to Turkey over the coup attempt.
However, US State Secretary John Kerry has said that this would only happen if Ankara were to provide proof of its allegations.
Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkey has been launching a crackdown on Gulen and the followers of his movement, known as Hizmet (Service), since December 2013.
Erdogan has long accused Gulen of orchestrating scandals against his inner circle in an attempted "judicial coup" and of building a "parallel state" with extensive influence in the Turkish police and judiciary.
There have also been numerous reports that members of Gulen's movement infiltrated the secret services, law enforcement offices, media outlets and the AK party itself.
Forty-seven businessmen and politicians, including the sons of three cabinet ministers, have been put in custody on corruption and bribery charges.
Gulen, who was accused of "leading a terrorist organisation", denied any involvement.
Hizmet, which has been around since the 1960s, has attracted supporters and critics in Turkey, Central Asia, and in other parts of the world.
The exact number of Hizmet is not known as the movement has no official membership rolls, however, estimates vary from one to eight million.
In late October, 2015, Turkey blacklisted Fethullah Gulen, including him in a list of most-wanted terrorists.
The self-imposed cleric, was earlier in 2014 charged in absentia of attempting to overthrow the government and leading a terror organization and was issued an arrest warrant after over 20 journalists working for media outlets thought to be sympathetic to the Gulen movement were arrested.
Dozens of former police officers, said to be his followers, were also tried in 2013 over corruption probes that targeted Erdogan's family and people close to him.
Gulen was born in 1941 in the village of Korucuk, near the northeastern city of Erzurum to an imam father and a mother, who taught Quran.
He turned preacher himself at the tender age of 14, influenced by the ideas of Said Nursi, a Kurdish Sunni Muslim Turkish-born theologian in the 19th C, who believed that modern science and logic was the way of the future.
Gulen went on to give a series of sermons in popular mosques of major cities across Turkey between 1988 and 1991.
In 1999, he fled to the United States, where he proceeded to make videotaped remarks favouring an Islamic state in Turkey, procuring a US green card two years later.
A self-educated, widely read, prolific writer, he is respected as an intellectual and spiritual leader.
He has attracted a sizeable following in Turkey and although he has lived in the United States since March 1999, his relocation did not diminish his influence.
TIME magazine named him as one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2013.
Dozens of schools, educational establishments and research facilities have been set up by the followers of his teachings around the world.
These include the New York-based Alliance for Shared Values, which operates as his official mouthpiece. (end) sd.rk