ANKARA
Authorities detained 10 police officers, including senior officials Wednesday in an operation launched across six provinces in Turkey in an ongoing "parallel state" probe.
Police are now on the look out for two more suspects.
The operation is being carried out on the request of the Siirt public prosecutor in Turkey's Siirt, Izmir, Balikesir, Elizag, and Sakarya provinces.
So far, police detained former police chiefs of Mersin and Siirt; assistant commissar and four policemen in Siirt, a policeman in Sakarya and two assistant commissars, one each in Balikesir and Elizag.
Police is now searching for a senior police officer of the western Izmir province and another policeman who served in Siirt.
The suspects were charged with "establishing an illegal organization to commit crimes," "recording non-public conversation between people," “violation of privacy,” “crime fabrication” and “forgery of documents.”
The "parallel state" is an alleged group of Turkish bureaucrats and senior officials embedded in the country's institutions, including the judiciary and the police, which is allegedly trying to undermine the Turkish government.
The government alleges that the clandestine network is run by the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen and his so-called Gulen movement for masterminding a plot to overthrow the elected Turkish government.
Turkey wants Gulen to be extradited from the U.S., where he lives since 1999. An Istanbul criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Gulen as part of a probe into the parallel state operation in December 2014.
