Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, accused of being behind 2016 coup, dies in United States

Oct. 21 (UPI) -- Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish dissident cleric, accused of orchestrating an abortive 2016 coup against his one-time backer, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with whom he shared a vision of a greater role for Islam in secular Turkey has died. He was 83 years old.

Gulen died Sunday in the United States, where he lived in self-imposed exile, as he was receiving treatment for heart and kidney failure, according to his Hizmet movement, in a hospital near his home in eastern Pennsylvania where he had been living in exile for 25 years.

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