Police Chiefs Apply To Parliament To Testify About Graft Probe

Two former police chiefs who were among the police officers who took part in a graft operation that went public on Dec. 17 have applied to Parliament asking the parliamentary Corruption Commission to hear their testimony in order to shed more light on the ongoing investigation.

Former İstanbul Police Department Financial Crimes Unit Deputy Chief Yasin Topçu and former National Police Department İstanbul Organized Crime Unit Chief Nazmi Ardıç went to Parliament on Friday to submit their petition to the Parliament Speaker's Office asking to be heard in the next sessions of the corruption commission regarding the four former ministers who were allegedly involved in graft.

Speaking after submitting his petition, Ardıç said he knows the whole process of the investigation into the graft scandal as well as the evidence gathering process, adding: "I am in a position to testify on all these issues. We are here to do what our responsibilities are required."

Topçu had previously questioned on his Twitter account why the police officers involved in the graft investigation were not being called on to testify in front of the commission.

Complaining that the commission had listened to the testimony of many people who are irrelevant to the graft investigation but that he had not been called on to testify, Topçu, in his tweets, wrote a 74-article chronology of the developments leading up to and following the Dec. 17 and 25 graft operations.

The commission was established on July 7 to investigate the massive graft scandals which went public on Dec. 17 and 25, 2013, which implicated several former ministers, members of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's inner circle and key businesspeople.

Topçu pointed out that members of the commission from the opposition parties in Parliament had made repeated attempts to hear testimony from him and other high-ranking police officials who took part in the graft probe. However, he said, these attempts were blocked by commission members from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

Meanwhile, main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy and member of the corruption commission Rıza Türmen said on Friday that the commission may hear one of the four former ministers in the next session, adding, "Two police officials have submitted their petition to Parliament. We should take the testimonies of the prosecutors who carried out the graft probe. If the prosecutors and police officers are not heard, then it means a proper investigation is not being conducted.”

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)