Turkey’s religious affairs agency said on Friday it had recalled six clerics from Germany for exceeding their authority, but lashed out at German police for raiding the homes of preachers suspected of spying for Ankara.

The Diyanet agency’s chief Mehmet Gormez vehemently denied there had been any wrongdoing by the clerics, saying his organisation was the target of a defamation campaign.

German police this week raided the homes of four Turkish Muslim clerics suspected of spying for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government on the movement of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for a coup bid last year.

The imams, who were not named, are accused of reporting to Diyanet on Turkish followers of Gulen, through the Turkish consulate in Cologne.

“The clerics did not engage in any illegal act,” Gormez told reporters in Ankara, adding that information had been shared with Germany.

But he said: “Six clerics who were evaluated to have exceeded their authority were sent back to their posts in Turkey.”

This was “to maintain the mutual trust between two countries and as a gesture of goodwill,” Gormez added.

He emphasized that they had never participated “in any act of intelligence-gathering or espionage”, but confirmed that the six recalled included the four clerics whose homes were raided.

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