President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey

Turkish official gazette said on Friday in Ankara that authorities have suspended about 8,000 security personnel and more than 2,000 academics, adding to a purge of people suspected of having links to perpetrators of a failed coup.

Since the coup attempt in mid-July, in which rogue soldiers tried to topple President Tayyip Erdogan’s government, Turkey has removed 80,000 people from public duty and arrested many of them, accusing them of sympathising with the plotters.

The gazette noted that of the security personnel removed in the latest purge, 323 were members of the gendarmerie and the rest police.

It said 2,346 more academics had been removed from universities.

The gazette said that hundreds of academics and others have already been swept from their posts, accused of links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Erdogan says masterminded the coup.

It added that more than 3,300 judiciary officials have also been dismissed, leaving a depleted workforce to manage the legal process against a growing number of detainees.

The Gazette said retired judges and prosecutors would be allowed to return to work if they applied to do so in the next two months. (Reuters/NAN)