According to the Anadolu Agency, Turkey’s official state-run news organisation, the three men – Ihsan Aslan, Turgay Karaman and Ismet Ozcelik – were taken to the Ankara police headquarters on May 12.
They are now being interrogated by the Counter-Terrorism Department of the Turkish National Police, the agency said in a report.
It also alleged that the men are members of the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO).
The Turkish government headed by president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused FETO of being led by influential preacher Fetullah Gulen who is now in exile in the US.
Critics and human rights activists have however accused Erdogan of fabricating the FETO, which they say does not exist, to put Gulen in bad light.
The Turkey Purge web portal, a watchdog that keeps track of alleged civil rights abuses and the political crackdown under Erdogan, has alleged that his administration was behind the move to bring the three men back to the country.
It said Erdogan’s administration has been arresting individuals suspected of supporting Gulen.
In an update yesterday, it said human rights organisations have expressed concern that Malaysia was going after Turkish nationals on its shores upon Turkey’s request.
The portal cited Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Office for Southeast Asia as calling on the Malaysian government to refrain from extraditing them due to concerns over their safety.
On May 12, Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar announced over Twitter that Aslan, Karaman and Ozcelik had been sent back to Ankara the day before.
Lawyer for Aslan, Noor Svetlana Mohd Noor Nordin, said the families were not informed of the deportation and only found out about it from journalists.
“We were not informed beforehand. The investigation officer who met us yesterday also did not give such information,” she had said.
Aslan, 39, and Karaman, 43, were arrested on May 2, and Ozcelik, 58, was arrested on May 4.
Ozcelik had previously been arrested on Dec 13 over immigration issues after his passport was cancelled by the Turkish government. He later obtained a UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) card and remained in the country as a refugee.
In a tweet on May 3, Khalid said Aslan and Karaman were arrested in connection with activities that threatened national security under Section 130 of the Penal Code.
They were then held under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 which allows for detention without trial.
On the same day, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is also the home minister, said they had been arrested for alleged links to the Islamic State (IS) terror group.
Aslan’s wife Ainnurul Aisyah Yunos Ali Maricar, Karaman’s wife Ayse Gul Karaman and Ozcelik’s wife Hatice Ozcelik have insisted that their husbands had no links to terrorist activities, saying they are harmless and had done nothing wrong.
Aslan, a businessman, had been in Malaysia for 15 years and Karaman is the principal of Time International School in Ipoh, Perak.
Ozcelik, meanwhile, is a member of Turkey’s Universiti Mevlana’s board of directors.
Turkish wives say husbands not terrorists, want them released