Turkish police carry out wiretapping raids targeting Erdogan foes

[January 20, 2015]  ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police on Tuesday carried out raids targeting dozens of people suspected of a role in illegal wiretapping, a move local media said was aimed at supporters of President Tayyip Erdogan's ally-turned-foe, U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Separately, the interior ministry replaced police chiefs in 21 provinces, according to an announcement published in Turkey's Official Gazette. It was not immediately clear why they were being replaced.

Broadcasters including CNN Turk said the raids, in four provinces including Ankara, were against the "parallel structure", the term Erdogan uses to refer to Gulen's supporters in the judiciary, police and other institutions.

Arrest warrants were issued for 28 people at the TIB telecommunications authority and at TUBITAK, Turkey's Scientific and Technological Research Council, local media said.

A corruption investigation targeting Erdogan's inner circle which became public in December 2013 was based in part on wiretapped conversations, many of which were subsequently leaked on the Internet.

The government says Gulen was behind that investigation and had instigated it in an attempt to overthrow the government. A Turkish court issued an arrest warrant in December for the Muslim cleric, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.

Erdogan responded to the investigation with a purge of the state apparatus, reassigning thousands of police and hundreds of judges and prosecutors deemed loyal to Gulen, in what his supporters said was a cleansing of the cleric's influence.

Turkey's Western allies have reacted with alarm to what they see as signs of erosion of the rule of law. Four prosecutors who initiated the graft inquiries have been suspended, the court cases dropped and government influence over the judiciary tightened.

Parliament was to vote on Tuesday on whether to commit four former ministers for trial over the corruption allegations, one of the last avenues of the investigation left open.

(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.