ANKARA, July 23: Turkish authorities have arrested scores of senior police officers on suspicion of illegally eavesdropping on top officials, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
At least 100 serving and former top police officers were arrested in a nationwide swoop yesterday, local media reported.
Most of the arrests were in Istanbul but raids were also carried out in the capital Ankara and cities including Izmir and Diyarbakir.
The arrests are the latest round in a bitter feud between Erdogan and his former ally Fethullah Gulen, in the wake of a vast corruption scandal that broke late last year implicating the prime minister and his inner circle.
Supporters of exiled cleric Gulen in the police force were widely blamed for leaking details of scandals.
The latest wave of arrests is set to further inflame political tensions in Turkey as Erdogan attempts to take the presidency in August 10 elections, having been prime minister for more than a decade.
Most of the suspects reportedly held key positions in the anti-graft probe against Erdogan, where some of the evidence came from recorded telephone conversations.
In the huge early morning operation, police in Istanbul alone raided almost 200 addresses.
Among those held were two former heads of the city’s elite anti-terror unit, Omer Kose and Yurt Atayun.
“I surrendered but as you see they put the handcuffs behind my back,” Atayun told reporters. “It is all political,” he said when asked why he was detained.
In a show of defiance, the former deputy head of the intelligence department of the Istanbul police, Hayati Basdag, raised his handcuffed fists high above his head in front of the press.
The suspects are accused of espionage, illegal wire-tapping, forging official documents, violation of privacy, fabricating evidence and violating the secrecy of an investigation, the reports said.
The public prosecutor’s office in Istanbul said in an earlier statement that arrest warrants had been issued for 115 suspects and 67 had been detained.
One inquiry is into a police investigation of an alleged terrorist group called “Selam-Tevhid”, which prosecutors said was used as a cover to wiretap prominent figures since 2010, including Erdogan, cabinet members, as well as the head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT), Hakan Fidan. (agencies)
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