Policemen in wiretapping probe lose mobile phones

The mobile phones of suspect police officers, who were being questioned at an Istanbul court over wiretapping claims, were confiscated on July 28.

The move came following a statement by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said after the Eid al-Fitr prayer that it was forbidden for suspects to use their mobiles during the probe. The prime minister also got into an exchange of words with Hakan Şükür, a former football star and current deputy that broke with the government over last year’s graft probe.

Some 16 detained policemen were probed until late July 27 as the questioning of 33 others more continued on Monday.

The 17th person to be probed was Yurt Atayün, the former head of the anti-terror police department in Istanbul, who had testified for 33 hours. His lawyers said the key suspect’s testimony at the court could last four or five days.

The arrested officers, including former Istanbul police intelligence chief Ali Fuat Yılmazer, were detained, along with others, on charges of illegal wiretapping in an operation launched July 23.

The latest court action follows two large anti-graft operations which were launched in December 2013 and led to the arrest of high-profile figures, including the sons of the three government ministers. All those detained in the probe were later released pending trial. The government has denounced the December probes as a “dirty plot” constructed by a “parallel structure” group of civil servants embedded within the country’s key institutions, including the judiciary and police.

Erdoğan said Şükür committed a crime by visiting the arrested officers in jail and posing for photos with them, albeit without naming the...