ANKARA
An Ankara court accepted an indictment Thursday in the case against 10 police officers who allegedly spied on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family while he was prime minister.
The officers are accused of illegally accessing the Erdogans' personal data from police records.
The indictment argues that the defendants allegedly sought the data to blackmail the family, damage Erdogan politically and tarnish Turkey's image by passing on the information to foreign intelligence organizations.
Investigators said the accused, who had access to police records called Detailed Data Analysis, used their login credentials for an unspecified period to make queries on the family members' education, properties, financial assets, kinship ties and other intelligence data.
The officers, however, said they accessed the records “because they loved Erdogan” and “to look at his photographs,” which is nonsensical, investigators argued.
Erdogan became Turkey’s president in August 2014 after winning the first-ever presidential election held by popular vote in the country’s history. He formerly served as prime minister for 12 years.
Turkish authorities say a “parallel state,” the name given to a purported pseudo power center within the state, has tried to topple Erdogan's government and was behind the 2013 Gezi Park anti-government protests and the graft probes against Erdogan's allies.
