Ten people arrested on charges of illegal wiretapping

A simultaneous operation was launched with the decision of Ankara Public Prosecutor Alparslan Karabay in 16 provinces in order to detain 34 people allegedly involved in conducting illegal wiretapping between 2007 and 2011. 

In his appeal to arrest 17 of the detainees, Karabay argued the accused did not exhaust readily available options before resorting to wiretapping. 

“In many cases of wiretapping which are subjects of this investigation, the suspects avoided conducting simple internal queries that could have rendered the wiretappings unnecessary,” his statement said.   

Karabay referred the suspects to court, arguing 17 were guilty of “establishing an organization to commit crimes” and “forgery of official documents” while demanding a judicial control decision for the other eight. 

Following an inquiry at court, ten people were arrested and 15 were issued judicial control decisions. 

Out of the 34 people warranted on May 11, two were already in prison while the whereabouts of six remained unknown. 

The case was regarded as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s and the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) judicial maneuvers against the “parallel state,” which was considered responsible for the landmark graft probe into senior AKP figures in December 2013, allegedly led by the followers of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.  

The Turkish government wants the extradition of Gülen from the U.S., where has been residing since 1999. An Istanbul criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for Gülen as part of the investigation.