Ex-TÜBİTAK Official Detained Over Alleged Bugging Device In Erdoğan's Office

Former vice president of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), Hasan Palaz, who was detained and then released in a January police operation targeting dozens suspected of having a role in illegal wiretapping, was detained again on Monday in an investigation into a bugging device allegedly found in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's office.

Palaz had been removed from his post over claims that he was involved in the 2011 bugging of former prime minister, now-President Erdoğan's office and study.

Palaz was detained along with Hamza Turhan and Gökhan Vıcıl -- two employees from TÜBİTAK's Advanced Technologies on Informatics and Information Security (BİLGEM) center -- on Monday morning as part of an investigation being conducted by Ankara Public Prosecutor Serdar Coşkun. Palaz, Turhan and Vıcıl were detained on charges of forging official documents under Article 204 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), as well as on charges of destroying, concealing or changing evidence of a crime under Article 281.

Palaz's lawyer Gökhan Güni said his client was detained based on accusations of falsifying a report regarding a bugging device that was allegedly found in Erdoğan's office.

Palaz was also detained on Jan. 21 as part of an operation conducted by the Gölbaşı Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. He was released the next day. That operation targeted senior staff members of the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB) and of TÜBİTAK over leaked voice recordings that feature the alleged voices of then-Prime Minister Erdoğan and his son Bilal. The recordings suggested the two were attempting to hide unknown amounts of cash in their family home, allegedly capturing a phone conversation that took place on Dec. 17, 2013, the day when a major corruption and bribery investigation targeting state ministers and pro-government businessmen became public knowledge.

Before he went to a police station to turn himself in, after an arrest warrant was issued against him on Jan 20, Palaz told the press that he was being detained because he had refused to falsify a report regarding the device allegedly found in Erdoğan's office. “Why I was also involved in the [recent] investigation is very clear. They want to take revenge on me because I did not give the report [as they wanted it],” Palaz said.


Palaz has written a book about the events that led up to the bugging device incident and his subsequent dismissal. In his book, titled, “Ömrümü Yedin Bay Böcek” (You Finished Off My Life, Mr. Bug), Palaz talks about how he was pressured to falsify a report on the bugging devices allegedly found in the office.

He claims that the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) sent bugging devices to him in January 2012, and that they were examined at TÜBİTAK, which found that the bugging device was activated around Dec. 4 - 5, 2011, with a three-day margin of error.

Palaz wrote that towards the end of 2013, he was invited to a meeting by the Prime Ministry's Inspection Board and was told to falsify the report to indicate that the bugging device had been activated 10 days before the date the TÜBİTAK examination had found. He claimed that two days before he was removed from his post at TÜBİTAK, he had gone to Ankara to testify to public prosecutor H.Ş. as a witness in the bugging device incident, and had informed the prosecutor about the TÜBİTAK report.

TÜBİTAK's BİLGEM President Arif Ergin later told Palaz that politicians do not want him at TÜBİTAK and he was removed from his post on Feb. 21, 2014.

Sweeping purges, which started in the police force and moved on to the judiciary after the Dec. 17 corruption scandal, have hit other institutions in Turkey, including both TÜBİTAK and TİB. The arrests, detentions and dismissals -- dubbed the “parallel state operation" -- are widely seen as an act of revenge by the government for the corruption probe that went public in 2013 and targeted bureaucrats and businessmen close to the government, as well as the sons of now-former ministers. The term “parallel state” was invented by then-Prime Minister Erdoğan to refer to sympathizers of Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, whom he sees as responsible for the probe. (Cihan/Today's Zaman)