17 police officials detained in Turkey

Some 17 members of the Turkish police force were detained on charges of illegal wiretapping early on Saturday, Cihan News Agency reported.

The operation was based in the eastern province of Van, where 9 members of the police force were detained. 8 others were detained in coordinated raids in Gaziantep, Kayseri, Ordu, Mersin, Ankara, Adana, Aydın and Manisa.

The detentions were ordered by the Van Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.

Scores of police officials and officers have been detained since a corruption scandal on December 17, 2013, which implicated then ministers and people in the inner circle of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was then the prime minister.

Erdogan denied corruption claims and described the scandal as a plot against his government by foreign powers and the Gulen movement, inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, which Erdogan says has set up a "parallel structure" within the state.

Pro-government media frequently refer to the operations against the police as "anti-parallel structure" operations.