ANKARA, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Fourteen Turkish police officers, including high-ranking national security officials, were arrested Monday for their alleged links to an illegal anti-government organization dubbed the "parallel state," Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper said.
All of the detained are suspected to have infiltrated the state, managed a criminal organization, wiretapped phone calls, forged documents and perpetrated other felonies in the interest of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen's movement.
Arrests were carried out in five provinces: Antalya, Mersin, Hatay, Sanliurfa and Diyarbakir.
These cases are the most recent in the string of police arrests that rolled through the country since the 2013 graft scandal, with most of charges linking police crimes to subversive activities of the US-based Islamic scholar, who is accused of funding the alleged anti-Erdogan movement.
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been blaming Gulen for trying to topple his government through a series of protests in 2013. These demonstrations sparked massive clampdown against many police and national security officials.
