20 policemen arrested in ‘parallel state’ probe

Twenty police officers have been sent to prison after being arrested as part of Turkey’s “parallel state” probe.

The arrested officers, including former Istanbul police intelligence chief Ali Fuat Yılmazer, were among 39 others who were detained on charges of illegal wiretapping in an operation launched on July 23. Eight people were released by prosecutors while 11 others were released by the court.

Yılmazer and Erol Demirhan, a former deputy chief of an intelligence branch, were arrested for “launching an organization to commit crimes” and “recording non-public conversations.” Others who were arrested face charges of “recording non-public conversations” and “forging official documents.”

Yılmazer refuted the accusations of organized crime, saying the phone recordings that were collected as part of probes were destroyed after no evidence of a crime was detected.

“It is impossible for me to control each and every document and piece of data as the branch head. I issued a written instruction not to conduct second and third wiretappings if no criminal element was found in the first round. [We] destroyed the recordings that we obtained. I don’t accept the accusations of using the recordings out of purpose. There was never an organized action,” Yılmazer said in his testimony.

Some 26 of 75 officers, who were detained on “espionage” allegations, including Yurt Atayün, former head of the Istanbul police’s anti-terror department, were also released. Some 49 officers were sent to court for with a demand for their arrest. The court has been continuing the questioning of 49 officers in Istanbul.   

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