Turkey‘s President Erdogan ‘minutes away from death’ after coup plotters stormed hotel
Controversial President makes claims as country warned over plan to execute thousands following failed military takeover
A HIT squad of Turkish coup plotters was minutes away from assassinating president Erdogan, he claimed yesterday.
The controversial head, 62, claimed the kill crew stormed the Marmaris hotel he was staying in when the unrest unfolded on Friday.
President Erdogan said they murdered two of his bodyguards in the five-star Grand Yazici Club Turban but he had managed to leave just ten minutes earlier.
The incredible Hollywood blockbuster-style attack emerged in his first interview to American station CNN.
He said: ““The fifteenth day I was in Marmaris, we had five days of vacation. About ten PM I was given the news, told me what was happening. We decided to leave
“Had I stayed ten, 15 additional minutes, I would have been killed or I would have been taken.”
It came amid reports the squad had been sent among three helicopters to where he had been staying.
They are said to have been told to “kill or capture” but he was tipped off about the attempt by a loyal army chief.
Erdogan’s Government yesterday increased pressure on America and was putting the finishing touches to a formal extradition request for a US-based cleric it believes organised the coup.
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The president’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said it suspects a man called Fethullah Gulen may have helped set up the movement.
He added: "If the U.S. insists on keeping him, people will start thinking they are protecting him," Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in Istanbul.
"A person can easily be extradited on the basis of suspicion, and on this occasion there is a lot of suspicion that he orchestrated this.”
Erdogan has threatened to kill thousands of plotters already arrested, but has been warned Turkey will be barred from joining the EU if he goes ahead.
So far 9,000 cops, 6,000 military personnel and 3,000 judges have either been held or suspended.
Erdogan would need to change the law to carry out the killings but did not row back on the idea in his most recent interview.
The politician declared: “The people now have the idea, after so many terrorist incidents, that these terrorists should be killed, that's where they are, they don't see any other outcome to it.
“Why should I keep them and feed them in prisons, for years to come? That's what the people say.
“They want a swift end to it, because people lost relatives, lost neighbours, lost children - they're suffering, so the people are very sensitive and we have to act very sensibly and sensitively.”
Erdogan’s purge of Turkey hit new levels late yesterday – targeting universities and the education sector.
In an incredible move it suspended 15,000 state education employees over the coup.
It then demanded the resignation of the deans of all 1,577 universities in the country.
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