The government dismissed the chief of police one by one who made corruption operation in Turkey.

The detention of 51 people, including bureaucrats, well-known businessmen and the sons of three ministers, on Tuesday as part of a major investigation into alleged bribery linked to public tenders and money laundering came as a bombshell in the Turkish media. Barış Güler, the son of Interior Minister Muammer Güler, Salih Kaan Çağlayan, the son of Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan, Abdullah Oğuz Bayraktar, the son of Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar, and Fatih Mayor Mustafa Demir were all detained in the investigation. Following these detentions, the government began to dismiss all police chiefs involved with the corruption probe.

Following the removal of 11 police chiefs from their posts in İstanbul on Wednesday due to their involvement in the corruption raids, which the authorities have called “misconduct,” the Ankara governor also removed 18 police chiefs in a similar fashion and reappointed them to lower positions. The dismissals have spread to the western province of İzmir to include Mehmet Erikoğlu, chief of the anti-organized crime police branch, Emin Göktaş, chief of the financial crime branch and Halil İbrahim Güzel, chief of the anti-terror branch all being removed from their positions. İzmir Governor Mustafa Toprak said there have also been further replacements.

Two members of the police department, including a police chief, have been removed from their posts in Kocaeli province, adding to the list of those dismissed in the wake of the graft probe. The chief of the anti-smuggling and anti-organized crime unit, Mehmet Ağzıbağlı, and his deputy Abdulkadir Demir have been removed from Kocaeli Police Department following the dismissals and changes in the police departments of İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir. Ağzıbağlı was appointed to a new post as chief of the education branch and has been replaced by Ayhan Karakoyun, who was the chief of the foreigners’ branch in the department. Hakan Başkal became the new deputy in the anti-smuggling branch after Demir’s removal from his post.

In addition, media outlets reported that three more police chiefs were dismissed in Bursa province while two others were sacked in Trabzon province. The dismissals are expected to expand to 20 other provinces in coming days.

Turkey Corruption Scandal:This is a Government Intervention against to justice

The Universal Jurists’ Platform held a press conference in front of Ankara Courthouse on Thursday to react against the police dismissals that came after the ongoing corruption investigation became public. Speaking during the conference, lawyer Hasan Basri Aksoy said the government is clearly intervening in the judiciary by dismissing police chiefs, who were carrying out their orders from the İstanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office, and by appointing two more prosecutors to the investigation.

Aksoy said they are concerned that the two new prosecutors, recently appointed to supervise the ongoing investigation, will dominate the probe and that the other two prosecutors, who launched the investigation, will be excluded from the probe over time.

Pointing to claims from top government officials, who stated on Wednesday that these police chiefs had been conducting the controversial bribery and corruption probe for 14 months without informing any top officials, Aksoy stated: “A police chief is not obliged to give information to the interior minister or any other top officials, other than the prosecutors who are conducting the probe. This is clearly stated in Article 5 of Criminal Enforcement Directive.”

The Judges and Prosecutors Association (YARSAV) issued a written statement saying that the government is interfering illegally in an attempt to save itself from the corruption probe. The statement said the government is not allowing the investigation to proceed into undesirable areas, thus it understands the judiciary purely as a weapon to marginalize its opponents.

YARSAV criticized Turkey’s judicial council, the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), for its silence in the face of this interference. It also said the government will not clear its name with the Turkish public or internationally, even if it wins the court case, as there has been too much government interference in the probe.

Meanwhile, Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Bülent Tezcan has sent a parliamentary question to Güler asking why the police chiefs were dismissed from their posts.

In a related development, National Judiciary Informatics System (UYAP) records have contradicted the claims from Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who stated on Wednesday that police chiefs had been conducting the investigation for 14 months without informing their superiors. Recently revealed UYAP records have shown that, in fact, the police chiefs registered the investigation with the UYAP system 14 months ago. FOX TV’s news editor, Ercan Gün, detailed the investigation’s file numbers during his live television broadcast on Wednesday evening: 50690, 125043 and 120653, all of which were registered in the UYAP system in 2012.

As nine suspects in the major graft investigation were referred to the İstanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan on Thursday, a total amount of TL 17.5 million is reported to have been confiscated so far as part of the investigation. The largest amount of money was seized during a police raid on the home of Halkbank General Manager Süleyman Aslan, where police found TL 14.5 million. During the raid on the home of Barış Güler, the interior minister’s son, the police seized a further TL 800,000.

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