Prosecutors interrogate 14 Gülenist officers over infraction of rules

The Ankara Prosecutor's Office on Wednesday started to interrogate 14 police officers, accusing them of illegally bestowing privileges on officers linked with the Gülen Movement.

After the prosecutor's office issued detention warrants for 17 officers, 14 of the suspects were detained as part of the investigation pertaining to "unlawful awarding of recognition certificates that affect an officer's promotion status and/or premiums." The whereabouts of three of the officers is unknown, Turkish media reported on Wednesday.

Reports prepared by the National Police Department's committee of inspection revealed that 30 alleged Gülenist infiltrators were given double salaries while they were on leave and various other offenses, such as arranging false documents to show some officers on duty even though they were not. The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, after assessing the reports, pressed the button for an operation against 17 suspects, including the brother of Zaman daily's editor-in-chief, and ordered their arrest.

Likewise, Gülenists were accused of carrying out illegal activities within the police department roughly a week ago. Four-hundred-seventy police officers allegedly linked with the Gülen movement were stripped of their rank after facing charges of stealing the questions of the commissariat test.