Turkish officials claim new evidence against Fethullah Gulen, while U.S. lawyers dismiss allegations as absurd

"We have read concerns from Turkey that Mr. Gulen, this elderly, frail religious leader, is going to flee to another country," said Steptoe & Johnson LLP attorney Reid Weingarten on Friday, calling such allegations "absurd." Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has blamed Gulen for the violence, in which Erdogan said 237 people were killed excluding the plotters and more than 2,100 wounded, and said the United States should extradite him to Turkey. The U.S. government has not done so, and the dispute has raised questions about relations between the two allies. Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, hosts American troops and warplanes at Incirlik Air Base, an important staging area for the U.S.- led fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. At a news conference in Washington, Weingarten and Michael Miller, another Steptoe attorney, said evidence from a 2015 case financed by the Turkish government against Gulen in U.S. federal court in Pennsylvania showed that the Turkish government relies on dubious proof to make its case against him. That case alleged Gulen issued coded orders to followers in the Turkish judiciary in a 2009 sermon to persecute members of another religious sect. It also alleged that the script of a popular Turkish television show was laced with follow-up messages. The case was dismissed by a judge in June. Turkish government officials, however, say such evidence is valid because Gulen operates covertly and sends encoded messages to his followers. Turkey has sent the United States new documents in recent days containing evidence that Turkish authorities say proves the cleric was HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_031485