MHP in bid to save wiretapped phone call recordings

A parliamentary commission has decided to destroy the primary evidence in a corruption probe against four ex-ministers, angering opposition members on the commission.

Mesut Dedeo?lu, a Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) panel member, told the panel and the Parliament Speaker's Office that the decision was "against the Constitution."

MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, meanwhile, has described the panel's nay vote as "one of the most embarrassing decisions" made in Turkish political history, adding that Turkey could "no longer live" with the ruling party's damaging approach to law and morality.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is a "threat to democracy, national unity, a thousand-year-old fraternity, individual rights and freedoms and the future," Bahçeli said on Jan. 6, also describing the ruling party as a "source of sin."

"The houses of journalists who wrote Twitter messages about the Dec. 17-25 operation are being cruelly raided," he told a parliamentary group meeting of this party, in an apparent reference to the detention of journalist and TV anchor Sedef Kaba?.

Kaba? was released on probation shortly after being detained for her tweet on Turkey's now-closed graft probe. Kaba? was detained on Dec. 30, 2014, following her tweet, in which she called on citizens to not forget the name of the judge who dropped the Dec. 17, 2013, corruption probe involving high-profile figures and former Cabinet members.

Bahçeli slammed the commission's decision not to pursue the case. "Bribed former ministers are secure and known children are safe. Yesterday, one of the most embarrassing decisions in Turkish political history was made when four former ministers were not sent to the Supreme Council by the parliamentary...