Director of Turkish state-run TRT World News was named as a suspect in IRGC Quds Force probe

Secret court and police documents obtained by Nordic Monitor have revealed that the director of TRT World, the English news channel of Turkey’s state broadcaster, was investigated as a suspect in a probe of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force operatives and assets in Turkey.

The documents, classified as secret, detail multiple wiretap warrants issued for Fatih Er, TRT World news director and former bureau chief for TRT in Jerusalem, by Turkish courts that were overseeing counterterrorism cases in Turkey.

The first warrant was granted by judge Süleyman Karaçöl of the Istanbul 2nd High Criminal Court on March 1, 2013 after a request filed by the special counterterrorism section of the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.

The warrant authorized the investigators to monitor not only Er’s phone conversations but also his Gmail account in order to decode the IRGC network, operating under the Turkish name Tevhid Selam. The warrant was reauthorized six times based on new leads the police discovered from the intercepted communications. The wiretaps reveal the suspects were concerned about the exposure of their past dealings in Syria and did their utmost to keep them secret.

Er has also been involved as an activist with radical Turkish charity group the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri ve İnsani Yardım Vakfı, or IHH). The IHH works closely with Turkish intelligence agency MIT, and its president, Bülent Yıldırım, has met with senior IRGC Quds Force operatives according to the investigation file.

In a wiretap dated June 1, 2013, Er was recorded as talking to Mehmet Akif Ersoy, the former TRT bureau chief in Cairo who had been trained in Shiite study circles in Syria, and stating that he was marching in an IHH rally in Istanbul. Ersoy was also target of the investigation. In the conversation Er names some reporters working for TRT and threatened them with dismissal because of their critical stance on the anti-government Gezi protests in the summer of 2013.

Director of Turkish state-run TRT World News was named as a suspect in IRGC Quds Force probe