Turkish officials confirm wiretapping of former Turkish president Gul

Investigations into Turkey’s "parallel state" eavesdropping network has revealed that the former president Abdullah Gul had been the target of illegal wiretapping for two years, a Turkish official said.

According to Science, Industry and Technology Minister Fikri Isik, the issue has been taken to the prosecutor, reported the Anadolu Agency on Sunday.

The investigation carried out by the National Security Board (MGK) found that a crypto-phone given to the former president in 2012 had been tapped until February 2014. Investigators are now trying to identify the culprit, reported World Bulletin News.

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) had left a line in crypto phones and wiretapping was possible through that security flaw, Işık said, claiming that TUBITAK experts who designed the encryption software were accomplices of the "parallel state."

He added that if encryption software writers in TUBITAK who wiretapped the telecommunications authority had not cooperated with collaborators in the police and the judiciary, eavesdropping would not have been possible, reported the Turkish daily Hurriyet.

The term "parallel state" was given to the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and his Hizmet movement by Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan for their alleged conspiracy aimed to control institutions within the state apparatus.

Gulenists occupy many of the most prominent positions within Turkey’s criminal justice bureaucracy and are said to be disproportionately represented within the judiciary, prosecution, police, and secret services.

Isik vowed that the government was taking measures against wiretapping by restructuring crypto phone encryption software and hardware so that the security flaw would be minimised.

Gulen is accused of being behind two police operations against government officials on 17 December and 25 December, in which Erdogan’s AK Party was accused of corruption and bribery. The government recognised the police operations as a coup attempt on the Turkish AKP-led government led by prosecutors and senior police officials loyal to Gulen.

Since the December incidents, dozens of senior police officers have been arrested in Turkey over the wiretapping scandal.