(FILES): Mike Flynn / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMM
Two partners of President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn were indicted Monday over an Ankara-backed scheme to remove Turkish dissident cleric Fethullah Gulen from the United States.
The Justice Department charged Bijan Rafiekian, aka Bijan Kian, 66, of San Juan Capistrano, California, and Kamil Ekim Alptekin, 41, of Istanbul, with acting as unregistered agents of the Turkish government and lying to the FBI over the 2016 scheme.
According to the indictment, Rafiekian and Alptekin made arrangements for the Flynn Intel Group to be indirectly paid $600,000 by the Turkish government to help turn US public and political sentiment against exiled Gulen.
The plan was developed at the height of the 2016 election campaign when Flynn was advising then-candidate Trump on foreign and security policy.
The goal, the Justice Department said, was to obtain Gulen’s extradition back to Turkey, where President…
