Former PM and intel chief among 360,000 monitored by Gülenists

Members of the Gülen Movement in government positions, who are notorious for allegedly carrying out illegal wiretapping activities, reportedly wiretapped former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, former National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Chief Sönmez Köksal, businessmen Cavit Çağlar and Rahmi Koç, by fabricating crimes that allowed them to receive court permission to tap their telephones.

In order to receive court permission, members of the Gülen Movement, who allegedly infiltrated the government's key bodies in an attempt to topple the government, fabricated crimes and evidence against those they claimed could be engaged in the offenses they made up.

The infiltrators, who allegedly deleted the recordings after using them, were reached in the archives of the Ankara 11th High Criminal court, which was a specially authorized court before being shut down last year.

According to findings, members of the group tapped Erbakan's phone after portraying him as having possible links with Hizbullah, Çağlar with the PKK and Koç with an illegal organization. The staff of the Turkish Army and members of the Constitutional Court were also reportedly on the list of people to be wiretapped.

The wiretapping of the targets were mostly carried out during the term of the former police chief allegedly affiliated with the Gülen Movement, who was assigned to his post in 2006 and formed his own team in 2007.

During his term, the team reportedly wiretapped dozens of people from different sections of society, including politicians, bureaucrats and members of the army by fabricating names, organizations and crimes.

The recent documents show that the general staff members on the Gülenists' list of those to be wiretapped would be portrayed as being associated with various criminal organizations.Turkey's far-right Great Union Party (BBP) head Mustafa Destici and Republican People's Party (CHP) members were wiretapped on claims that they were members of a fabricated organization. Former ministers Erdoğan Bayraktar and Şevket Kazan were wiretapped on suspicion of terrorism. Then Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş and his wife were wiretapped as part of the Hizbullah file. Kurdish politicians and one of the lawyers of jailed PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, were also wiretapped. Between 2007 and 2008, members of Constitutional Court were others among those allegedly wiretapped by Gülenists.

Çağlar, who provided the state with a private plane to bring Öcalan from Kenya to Turkey, was wiretapped over suspicion of being a member of the PKK. Koç was also on the list, findings show. Those who were convicted in the Ergenekon coup plot trial were also wiretapped, according to the reports.

The Gülen Movement is an international movement led by Fethullah Gülen, who lives in self-imposed exile in rural Pennsylvania. The movement is accused of wiretapping thousands of people including government officials, journalists, nongovernmental organizations, academics and other prominent figures. It has over 140 private schools around the world including the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa and has been accused of infiltrating Turkish state institutions with the aim of overthrowing the government.

Government officials have continuously expressed their determination to continue to lawfully pursue the Gülen Movement, whose followers are accused of infiltrating state institutions to gain control of state mechanisms, illegal wiretapping, forgery of official documents, tracing the location of phones through GPS signals and spying.

They are seen as a national threat by the government as reports prepared by inspectors from the Interior Ministry have revealed that dozens of police officers affiliated with the movement unlawfully wiretapped thousands of people in a systematic and organized manner for purposes of espionage.