Wikileaks releases nearly 300,000 AKP emails after Turkey's post-coup purge

Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks on Tuesday night released 294,548 emails from the internal server of Turkey's ruling party Justice and Development Party (AKP) in response to the Turkish government's purges after the recent failed coup.

"Part one of the series covers 762 mail boxes beginning with 'A' through to 'I' containing 294,548 email bodies together with many thousands of attached files. The emails come from 'akparti.org.tr', the AKP's primary domain. The most recent was sent on July 6, 2016. The oldest dates back to 2010," the website said in its release.

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Wikileaks had also announced earlier that it would be releasing the list of documents.

Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish government had accused Fethullah Gülen of orchestrating a failed military takeover on Friday in which at least 232 people were killed, and had called in speeches for his extradition from the United States.

Gülen had denied any involvement in the coup bid, suggesting Erdogan staged it as an excuse for a crackdown.

Around 1,400 people had also been wounded as soldiers commandeered tanks, attack helicopters and warplanes in their bid to seize power, strafing parliament and the intelligence headquarters and trying to seize the main airport and bridges in Istanbul.

Wikileaks in its release also said that the emails were obtained by it a week before the coup. "However, WikiLeaks has moved forward its publication schedule in response to the government's post-coup purges. We have verified the material and the source, who is not connected, in any way, to the elements behind the attempted coup, or to a rival political party or state," the website further said.

Turkish authorities had suspended or detained close to 20,000 soldiers, police, judges and civil servants after the coup. The dismissals included 257 people from the prime minister's office, 492 from the Religious Affairs Directorate and 100 intelligence officials.

More than 6,000 soldiers and around 1,500 others had been detained since the abortive coup. Some 8,000 police officers, including in the capital Ankara and the biggest city Istanbul, had been removed on suspicion of links to the plot.

After the release, Wikileaks was blocked in Turkey.

The website has also been facing a series of cyber attacks since it released the list of emails.

With inputs from Reuters