FETHULLAH GULEN, a reclusive US-based Islamic cleric who faced accusations he masterminded a failed 2016 coup in his native Turkey, has died.

Mr Gulen, who was in his eighties and had long been ill, spent the last decades of his life in self-exile, living in a gated compound in Pennsylvania.

He began as an ally of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan but became a foe. He called Mr Erdogan an authoritarian bent on accumulating power and crushing dissent.