Clumsiness lies behind Turkey's tapping scandal
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Turkey's Islamist Vakit daily revealed a document of phone records that showed their correspondents listened the conversation between the main opposition party CHP's second man and a governor from Onder Sav's cell phone which he left open by mistake. CHP denied the report.
Pro-AKP Vakit published the conversation between Sav and Governor Ali Serindag, an incident which CHP claimed its offices and high level officials have been tapped by security officials, and accused the government. The AKP government rejected the claims and proposed to form a parliamentary committee to investigate the claims.
According to the document which was provided by Turkey's fixed line operator Turk Telekom was called on his cell phone from a telephone number that belonged to Ankara office of Vakit newspaper at 10:03 a.m. (0700 GMT) on May 23. The telephone conversation lasted for 44 minutes and 6 seconds.
Sav did not want to talk to Vakit correspondent and wanted to hang up the phone, however he pushed the "yes" button unintentionally instead of "no". The correspondents listened to the conversation from the cell phone that remained open.
Even if Vakit's claim that "they listened to the conversation from the cell phone that remained open" is accurate, such a tapping is also considered "illegal." However, the punishment is not daunting.
However CHP denied the report. CHP's Deputy Chairman Mustafa Ozyurek said Sav did not touch the phone and insisted on their claims of being tapped.
Illegal tapping remains as a serious problem in Turkey. MHP joined CHP's claims, saying it has doubts of being bugged.    Â
Photo: Hurriyet Archives