Ex-intel chief confirms mass tapping after giving testimony on Hrant Dink murder

Ali Fuat Yılmazer has been under arrest since July 23.

Ali Fuat Yılmazer, a former Istanbul police intelligence chief who has been under arrest since July 23 as part of an illegal wiretapping case, confirmed in a Dec. 4 statement released by his lawyer that some 160 high-profile people were wiretapped between 2008 and 2009. 

Daily Hürriyet had report edthat 160 individuals, including top businesspeople such as Doğuş Holding’s Ferit Şahenk, Hürriyet Chairwoman Vuslat Doğan Sabancı, Koç Holding’s Ali Koç, and Çukurova Holding’s Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, along with former top soldiers and journalists, were wiretapped under fake names in 2008 and 2009. 

“The wiretappings were done as part of the law. What’s criminal here is revealing the intelligence wiretappings,” Hüseyin Ataol added. 

An inquiry, which has been ongoing for the past two-and-a-half months, revealed that the wiretapping of 160 people was justified by adding their names to a list of “members of a terrorist or criminal organization,” under the dossier “intelligence wiretapping.”

Yılmazer was among the 32 intelligence officers detained in Istanbul in anti-terror operations launched in 15 provinces on July 23.

His remarks came after he was brought to the courthouse to give his testimony in the ongoing case into the 2007 killing of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink.