Associated Press
5 August 2016
By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press
ISTANBUL –
After raiding a home and business owned by someone suspected of
loyalties to a banned Muslim cleric, police listed the incriminating evidence
they found: two shotguns, a pistol, ammunition, a fake identity card — and
three $1 bills.
The serial numbers, they noted, all began with the
letter F.
In one of the odder twists in Turkey's failed July 15
coup and the subsequent crackdown, authorities are citing U.S. banknotes — and
$1 bills in particular — as evidence that people are followers of Fethullah
Gulen, a U.S.-based Muslim cleric whom Turkey accuses of orchestrating the
coup. [...]
One idea making the rounds in Turkish news media is
that the letters at the start of the banknotes' serial numbers correspond to
ranks in the movement. According to a report in the Aksam daily, one theory is
that F designates a high-ranking soldier or police chief; J and C represent
low-ranking soldiers; E and S are for instructors and academics in Gulenist
schools and B is for students.
"With one American dollar, this organization
turned the children of this country into monsters," Prime Minister Binali
Yildirim said Thursday in a speech. […]