Six police officers charged in Turkey wiretap probe

by Mustafa Çağlayan 

ADANA, Turkey - Six police officers have been detained and charged in Turkey as part of a massive probe into unlawful wiretapping cases which have rocked the country over the last three months.

On Tuesday, eight police, including one woman and one retired officer, were detained in the southern Turkish province of Adana.

Two of the suspects were released after an investigation, but the other six have been charged by court order.

The charged officers – all serving members of the force's Intelligence Department – include two police chiefs, Ismail Bilgin and Ertugrul Yetkin. 

Wiretapping scandals have made the headlines in Turkey since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in late 2012 that a "bug" had been found in his office.

In late February, a Turkish daily – Yeni Safak – published a list of 7,000 people, including Prime Minister Erdogan, whose phones had been allegedly wiretapped for three years by two prosecutors from the Istanbul Court as part of a legal file run by an Istanbul court under the country's Anti-Terrorism Act. 

The latest scandal surfaced on March 28 when a recording of a leaked conversation between top security officials discussing a possible military operation in Syria was uploaded to YouTube.