ISTANBUL: He has access to top secret information, has been able to stay one step ahead of the authorities and is nearly always right.

Who is Fuat Avni, the mystery Turkish Twitter user who once again correctly predicted Sunday’s raids against critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan days before they took place?

The controversial swoop on media allied to exiled US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen — who Erdogan blamed for orchestrating a corruption probe to unseat him — was just the latest in over half a dozen such raids since the summer.

On each and every occasion, the raids have been correctly predicted by Fuat Avni before they took place, allowing the suspects to brace themselves for their arrest.

But no one has a firm idea of who Fuat Avni is and from where he obtains his information, leaving Turkey abuzz with rumours over the user’s real identity.

Fuat Avni sent a message to his 650,000 followers from @fuatavnifuat on Thursday, warning that police were set to detain some 400 people, including 147 journalists in the imminent raids.

“Tomorrow there will be an operation!” he tweeted, sharing a link to a website that named journalists — all working for media seen as critical of Erdogan — that would be targeted in the raids.

Avni said reaction to his tweets forced the government to delay the raids for two days and reduce the number of journalists they were planning to arrest.

Over two dozen people, including top media figures and others, were eventually detained in Sunday’s raids.

Fuat Avni claimed the operation was in revenge for last year’s corruption probe launched almost exactly a year ago against members of Erdogan’s inner circle and that the next target would be those in the “mainstream media” seen as critical of the government.

Some say Avni is one of Erdogan’s close aides, while others believe he is an intelligence officer or even a CIA agent who wants to “stir up” the country.—AFP

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2014