Forty-four people including former police chiefs, provincial governors and civil servants were detained by police on Tuesday on charges of acting beyond their legal authorities.

The detainees, who have only been identified by their initials, include former İzmir Police Chief A.B., former İzmir Deputy Police Chief M.A.Ş., three provincial governors, a deputy governor, former Afyon Police College head M.K., former civil inspector F.İ. and a number of other police officers and bureaucrats.

The Cihan news agency has reported that İzmir Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Okan Bato ordered the detention of 57 suspects. The city’s anti-smuggling and organized crime unit then conducted raids that were centered in the province of İzmir but extended to 17 other cities and detained 44 individuals. The order was given by the prosecutor without a court order on the grounds that the case was urgent.

İsmail Hakkı Küçük, a lawyer of one of the suspects, told Cihan that a prosecutor can give detention orders for urgent cases but it criticized the fact that it was given for police officers on duty. “Do not be surprised if the prosecutor also rules to arrest them. They do not feel the need for a judge. They are violating the rights of 57 people with the detention orders. Why is the case so urgent?” Küçük said.

The İzmir Public Prosecutor’s Office has released a written statement on the operation in which it claims the suspects are members of the “parallel structure.” The term “parallel structure” was invented by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to refer to followers of the Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, a grassroots initiative inspired by the ideas of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

Erdoğan made the elimination of the “parallel structure” a priority after a major corruption scandal involving people in his inner circle came to public attention with a wave of detentions on Dec. 17, 2013. Erdoğan, who was prime minister at the time of the scandal, framed the corruption investigation as a “plot against his government” by the Hizmet movement and foreign collaborators.

The detentions have targeted the police officers, members of the judiciary and bureaucrats who carried out operations against a military espionage gang based in İzmir in 2011.

The İzmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into the spy ring, whose members stand accused of obtaining classified military information to sell to third parties. The suspects are also accused of hiring foreign sex workers to send to military officers. The sex workers would illegally obtain personal information about the officers and blackmail them into providing the spy ring with classified information. The group is based in İzmir but reportedly has branches in provinces including İstanbul, Ankara, Bursa, Antalya, Muğla, Manisa, Zonguldak and Ordu.

The indictment by the İzmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office about the case states that the gang had a complicated structure and that it carried out activities to damage the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the government.

Then-Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said during an interview in 2013 that he was examining documents seized by police as part of an operation against a military espionage gang and that he was considering becoming a co-plaintiff in the case against the gang. Some of the documents are said to include personal information about Arınç.

“I see that there are things that concern me, too. There are also issues related to [Deputy Prime Minister] Ali Babacan,” Arınç said.

Ministers and members of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government expressed their support for probes targeting gangs with connections in the military at the time. Critics of the government later speculated that the AK Party used the probes as part of its project to tame the TSK, which had dominated Turkish politics for decades.

After Erdoğan launched a campaign against the Gülen movement after the Dec. 17 scandal and redesigned the police and the judiciary, police launched investigations against the bureaucrats, members of the judiciary and police who had carried out investigations against major criminal networks, some of them targeting Erdoğan and members of his government.

‘Judiciary is subordinate to government’

According to Ahmet Gündel, a retired public prosecutor who worked for the Supreme Court of Appeals, the judiciary has been subordinated to the executive arm of government.

Speaking with the Cihan news agency on Tuesday, Gündel said that the detention of police officers, governors and bureaucrats in İzmir was a bad beginning for the new term of the AK Party, which secured enough seats in Parliament to form a single-party government in Sunday’s general election. “If there is any concrete evidence of a crime against anyone, a prosecutor should not wait for the results of an election. The operations in İzmir show that the judiciary is acting in accordance with the government, which goes against the impartiality and independence of the judiciary,” Gündel said.

Noting that many of those who did not vote for the AK Party on Sunday are concerned about their freedoms and rights, Gündel said that Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu must keep the promise he made during his victory speech in Ankara on Sunday evening to provide providing freedoms, rights and equal treatment to all citizens.

Source: Zaman