'Parallel plot' over pro-Gaza event reveals Selam-Tevhid probe

The wiretapping operation was actually launched in Istanbul after an activity held in solidarity of Gazans in 2010. The intelligence unit of the Istanbul police sent an official document, numbered 9072, to the chief public prosecutor's office on May 12, 2010, to report about the event, titled 'Brotherhood Bridge from Istanbul to Gaza', held on May 9 in the Istanbul's Kagithane district.

The document was later forwarded to the prosecutor in charge of implementing Article 250 of the Criminal Procedures Act. The prosecutor launched a preliminary inquiry two days after the criminal unit's call for an investigation into the pro-Palestine activity.

The intelligence document highlighted the phone conversation of Nurettin Sirin, in which he criticized the Israeli troops' arrest of Izzettin Sahin, the chief of a Turkish relief agency active in Gaza, and slammed Israel's slaughter in the Gaza Strip. Sirin, the editör-in-chief of Istanbul-based KUDÜS TV, has later become the number one suspect in the Selam-Tevhid case.

This inquiry has formed a basis for the Selam-Tevhit case. The police reports, which later drew attention to the presence of the so-called Selam-Tevhit and its anti-Israeli activities, led to the three-year investigation during which over 2,280 people were wire-tapped.

Police officers, loyal to the US-based cleric Gulen leading 'the parallel structure' within the state, illegally bugged 251 people including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkey's intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and some cabinet members under fake identities with the rulings, submitted the permission for the then specially-authorized courts.

The police reports, which showed Fidan's phone conversations concerning the national security with the foreign dignitaries, have been listened to under the fake identity, Emin, and most of them have been wire-tapped.

According to police reports, during a three-year investigation 2,280 people were indirectly wire-tapped. The officers, who were pretending to listen to conversations of alleged members of Selam-Tevhid, were actually aiming to spy.

On December 17, 2013, the day when the police detained sons of three cabinet ministers as part of an investigation into tender fraud and bribery to target the authority of the Turkish PM, the court decision for listening to the Selam Tevhid investigation had been granted.

However, the prosecutor, who was running the investigation, ordered to end the listening operation one day later because Gulen's illicit ring's game was unfoiled.

On December 18, those linked with the parallel structure held another operation in Turkey's communication watchdog, TIB. All records, related to a total of 198 phone numbers and e-mail accounts, were transferred to four different external disks through the watchdog's IT system.

The disks were later sent to the prosecutor's office in a sealed bag. All data and records have been destroyed in the IT system to prevent the continuation of communication.

Bülent Yildirim, the leader of the Turkish relief agency, or IHH, said if the investigation against the officers, who were involved in illegally listening to the Selam-Tevhid probe, deepens, then more striking documents could be revealed. 'The probe must go back until 1997-98. They certainly have a link with Israel. This link was not one which was established recently. The operation launched against us showed that they have had relations in Israel years ago,' Yildirim said.