ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey's state-run news agency says prosecutors have launched an investigation following reports in pro-government newspapers that claimed authorities had uncovered an assassination plot against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's daughter.
The Anadolu Agency says the Ankara State Prosecutor's office initiated the probe on Friday after the newspapers Aksam, Gunes and Star claimed that U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen had ordered Sumeyye Erdogan's assassination and that Turkey's opposition party supported the plot.
The papers, which are prone to exaggeration, based their reports on alleged intercepted Twitter messaging between a journalist who is close to Gulen and opposition legislator Umut Oran.
Gulen's lawyer called the reports a "preposterous scenario." Oran denounced them as plot to frame the opposition.
Erdogan accuses Gulen of orchestrating corruption allegations last year in an attempted "coup" to unseat him.
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