ISTANBUL
A court in Istanbul has issued arrest warrants for 10 servicemen, including a lieutenant for allegedly violating Turkey’s national security law over a 2014 incident involving trucks of the Turkish intelligence service.
The warrants were issued at the request of the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office.
On May 7, a former gendarmerie commander and four prosecutors were also arrested for allegedly violating Turkey’s national security over the same 2014 incident.
Adana's former provincial gendarmerie (rural police) commander Ozkan Cokay, former chief public prosecutor Suleyman Bagriyanik, prosecutors Ozcan Sisman, Aziz Takci and Ahmet Karaca were placed under arrest.
The arrest warrants were linked to a probe involving the stop and search of the Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT) trucks in January 2014. The searches happened in Turkey’s southern provinces of Adana and Hatay.
The MIT trucks were stopped in Adana by local gendarmerie on the grounds that they were loaded with ammunition, despite a national security law forbidding such a search.
Turkey's Interior Ministry said at the time that the trucks, which were claimed to be carrying arms into northern Syria, were in reality conveying humanitarian aid to the Turkmen community in the war-torn country.
A total of 47 people have been reportedly arrested within the scope of the investigation as part of the "parallel state" probe into the so-called “Selam-Tevhid” organization.
According to the Turkish government, the “parallel state” or “parallel structure” refers to a purported group of Turkish bureaucrats and senior officials embedded in the country's institutions, including the judiciary and police, who are allegedly trying to undermine the elected Turkish government.
The ongoing operation against the “parallel state” has resulted in the detention of dozens of police officers and the reassignment of hundreds of other officers across Turkey.
