“I will not give interviews on this,” said Merve Kavakci when asked at a investment event here on the deportation of a Turkish school teacher and his family.

Arif Komis was arrested upon arrival in Turkey, after Malaysian police fulfilled a request from Ankara to deport him on claims that he belonged to a group alligned to exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen.

The Turkish government labels Gulen a terrorist, and accuses him of masterminding the failed coup in 2016.

The move to deport Komis drew condemnations from international rights groups Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has classified Komis a “person of concern”, and warned that he could be harmed if forcibly returned to his home country.