ISTANBUL - Turkish police detained 22 security officers on Monday on suspicion of illegally wiretapping politicians, civil servants and businessman, Dogan News Agency reported. The raids were a further salvo in President Tayyip Erdogan's campaign against supporters of his ally turned arch-foe, the US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. The chief prosecutor's office in the southeastern province of Gaziantep coordinated the raids in 13 mainly eastern and southeastern cities, according to Dogan, a privately owned national news service. Prosecutors were not immediately available for comment. Erdogan accuses Gulen of setting up a 'parallel state' within the Turkish administration and trying to topple him, blaming his supporters within the police and judiciary for a corruption inquiry that rocked the government late in 2013. In the course of the scandal, apparently incriminating wiretap recordings of the then-prime minister, ministers and other senior officials were leaked onto the Internet. Erdogan has cast the investigation, which led to the resignation of three ministers, as a 'coup attempt' and in response he had thousands of police officers, judges and prosecutors removed from their posts.
(photo credit: The Jerusalem Post)