While 30 of the 65 people detained in a Mersin-based operation on Monday were released on Wednesday, four more people were detained in the central province of Kayseri on Wednesday over claims of their involvement in exam fraud. A total of 65 people were detained in nine provinces around the country in the Mersin-based operation as part of a new wave of investigations into police officers. This time, the detention orders were issued on charges of illegal wiretapping. According to the Cihan news agency, 30 detainees out of 65, including civilians, police officers from intelligence and anti-smuggling units and the owner of a website, were released on Wednesday after their testimonies were taken by the police. The Mersin-based operation comes hot on the heels of a large-scale Konya-based police operation on May 22 that targeted dozens of police officers and businessmen. Among the police officers detained as part of that operation were Ercan Taştekin, a former Bingöl police chief and Anadolu Atayün, a former police chief and head of an Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Bureau. A court arrested five people, including Atayün, on May 25 as part of an investigation into the so-called “parallel structure.” Thousands of police officials and officers, as well as judges and prosecutors, were reassigned or removed in the aftermath of Turkey's Dec. 17, 2013 corruption and bribery scandal. Many among them were later prosecuted and imprisoned pending trial on the charge of membership of the "parallel structure,” a phrase created by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to refer to the faith-based Gülen movement. In another development in Kayseri on Wednesday, four people were detained for allegedly cheating on a military high school entrance exam administered in 2013. According to the Doğan news agency, police officers from the Kayseri Police Department detained three teachers on Wednesday morning in Kayseri on charges of alleged fraud in the military high school exam. One teacher was also reportedly detained in the capital city of Ankara. The detention order has reportedly been issued for eight people, with four more wanted by the police. The teachers are accused of having copies of the exam questions, which had been allegedly obtained before exam day, and sharing them among students. Police also searched two dormitories in Kayseri as part of the operation on the grounds that one of the suspects was supposed to be in one of these dormitories. Policemen inspected the identity documents of the students staying at the dormitory and the dormitory's employees. After finding that the suspect was not in either of the dormitories, police attempted to seize the computers found in one of the dormitories. When a lawyer at the dormitory objected to this, police officers copied the computers' hard disks. According to news reports, the detainees are accused of sabotaging the Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM) and fraud in the entry examination to study at military high schools. Lawyer Mahmut Aydın said a team from the Kayseri Police Department searched the dormitory on the basis of search-and-seizure orders made by public prosecutors. “They couldn't find anything that was against the law. The search-and-seizure order for the dormitory is an unlawful act. There is no evidence. They came due to a simple complaint. The content of the complaint is baseless," the lawyer said and claimed that a public perception operation was being conducted against the dormitory. “We are not going to accept this, we will press charges.” Twitter whistleblower Fuat Avni wrote early on Wednesday that an operation would be launched into alleged fraud in the military high school exam in 2013 and further announced that there would be detentions in the matter. The Twitter account also claimed that police would conduct searches at student dormitories that are believed to be linked with the Gülen, or Hizmet, movement, inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. Operation launched against two prep schools in Elazığ over alleged tax fraud Police have searched two prep schools in the eastern province of Elazığ and seized computers there in an operation launched by the Elazığ Public Prosecutor's Office over alleged tax fraud claims. The Elazığ Police Department's Anti-smuggling and Organized Crime Unit launched simultaneous raids at two branches of a prep school in the province on Wednesday morning. Police officers barred the entrance of a building, copied the hard disks of the computers at the prep schools and seized some documents. Students who came to the prep schools for scheduled classes were turned away by police officers. The operation was reportedly launched because of allegations of irregularity in the prep schools' registrations and tax fraud.

• published: 04 Jun 2015
• views: 5