Turkey arrests over 50 senior police officers in new swoop
Tuesday, 22 July 2014
Turkish authorities on Tuesday arrested 55 senior police officers in a criminal probe over alleged corruption and abuse of office, the latest apparent crackdown on opponents of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of presidential polls. Forty serving and former top police officers were arrested in Istanbul, including the former head of the anti-terrorism unit of Istanbul police. Fifteen others were arrested elsewhere, the reports said a new sweep against the movement of Erdogan's former ally Fethullah Gulen in the wake of a vast corruption scandal implicating the prime minister and his inner circle. In the huge operation conducted in the early morning, police in Istanbul alone raided almost 200 addresses, according to AFP.