About 5000 Turkish Policemen Reshuffled Following Forced Retirement

- A second operation against police officers in Turkey began with the reshuffling of thousands of officers April 29, following the first wave of forced retirement among high ranking officers.

The Security General Directorate has reshuffled about 5,000 police officers including 440 police chiefs and a number of superintendents, many of whom were allegedly involved in the country’s Dec. 17 and 25, 2013, graft probes.

The reshuffled officers had previously been working in the anti-terror, anti-smuggling and organized crime and intelligence branches.

Meanwhile, a total of 2,200 police officers, the majority of whom were third and fourth degree police chiefs, were assigned to institutions such as the Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Environment and Urbanization Ministry. The police officers were reported to work in their new posts as experts and assistant experts depending on their previous ranks.

An additional 25,000 police officers are also expected to be reshuffled in the 2015 reshuffle period, which will be reviewed in June.

The mass retirement of police chiefs began April 16 following a controversial domestic security bill signed into a law on April 3 with thousands of police chiefs forced to retire.

The Supreme Assessing Authority reviewed the records of first-, second-, third- and fourth-degree police chiefs and a total of 1,142 first-degree police chiefs out of 1,776 retired.

The majority of the retired police chiefs were allegedly linked to the “parallel state,” though which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has accused the sympathizers of U.S.-based scholar Fethullah Gülen of trying to topple the government.