‘Wiretapping phones illegal other than by authorized institutions’

“In accordance with Law No. 5397 [on the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB)], no institution or individual can wiretap phones other than the National Intelligence Organization [MİT], the National Police Department and the gendarmerie. If there is any other institution that has wiretapped phones, it has acted illegally,” the minister said on Thursday. He said he had ordered the ministry's Information Technologies and Communications Authority (BTK) to launch an investigation into the claims of illegal wiretapping and that the BTK has been working to shed light on the issue.

BTK head Tayfun Acarer also commented on the issue yesterday and underlined that only three institutions are authorized to wiretap phones.

When asked whether the General Staff had committed a crime by purchasing a wiretapping system, Acarer said: “I do not know whether the General Staff purchased this system through the gendarmerie, but I am telling you what the law says. I am saying that only three institutions are authorized and that the law does not mention the General Staff.”

The Taraf daily reported on Monday that Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Aslan Güner, who was at the helm of the General Staff’s intelligence department in 2007, wiretapped nearly 2,000 civilians with the wiretapping system purchased for the General Staff’s Electronic Systems Command (GES) from Israel. However, GES has no legal authority to wiretap phones in Turkey.

The General Staff in a written statement on Wednesday acknowledged that the system was purchased in 2007, but argued that the technical equipment for the system was installed near borders to wiretap terrorists outside the country. However, experts say the system cannot wiretap phones at a distance of more than 30 kilometers.

Acarer also agreed, saying such a system cannot wiretap phones at a large distance.

Meanwhile the Bugün daily reported yesterday that a wiretapping device of the system was installed near the Special Forces Command during a civilian search at the command in December as part of a probe into a suspected military plot to assassinate Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç.

The report comes to refute a written statement made on Wednesday by the General Staff, which claimed that the system was used to monitor members of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and to confirm the report by Taraf on Monday which said the General Staff instead illegally wiretapped nearly 2,000 civilians, including prominent figures.

The device was reportedly installed in one of GES’s vehicles which was then deployed in Ankara’s Kirazlıdere neighborhood, where the Special Forces Command is located, while the search of the command was under way. The command is where confidential military documents are kept in archives and is referred to as the “cosmic room.”

The search was initiated on Dec. 24 after the capture of two officers from the Tactical Mobilization Group, a unit under the General Staff’s Special Forces Command, as they stood watch near Arınç’s house in Ankara’s Çukurambar neighborhood.

Bugün also claimed that the system was also moved to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) in 2008. It is unknown why and where the system was used in the KKTC by the then-commander of the Turkish Cypriot Peace Forces Command (KTBK), Gen. Hayri Kıvrıkoğlu.

Taraf quoted remarks from ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) parliamentary group Deputy Chairman Bekir Bozdağ on the wiretapping claims. “Claims show that a constitutional violation is in question. So, a judicial investigation will be carried out to find out and punish those who are responsible for that,” he said, adding that a civilian judicial probe may be launched into the claims because the system allegedly wiretapped civilians.