World Bulletin / News Desk

It has been revealed that former Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan had been spied on under the suspicion that he was a 'terrorist'.

The late Erbakan's name was among a list of 64 names including politicians, defence industry workers, businessmen, journalists and writers who had their telephone conversations monitored upon the orders of an Ankara-based prosecutor, Turkey's daily Yeni Safak reported.

According to the newspaper, Erbakan, who was ousted in a coup in February 1997, had been the target of a wiretapping scandal for three months between July and September 2009, a little over a year before he passed away.

Former premier Erbakan was a mentor to Turkey’s current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was raised in the Islamist Milli Gorus (National Vision) movement that Erbakan had started.

Turkey has been gripped by a wiretapping scandal which was exposed when it was revealed that hundreds of thousands of Turkish citizens had had their telephones tapped illegally.

The scandal was taken to new lengths when listening devices were found hidden in plugs in the Prime Minister's office, with Erdogan pointing the finger at infiltrators loyal to his former ally, US-based congregation leader Fethullah Gulen.

Since then, Turkey's new president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led a purge on the police force, Erdogan requested Gulen's deportation from the US to Turkey to face questioning regarding allegations of his role in leading a spy ring which has not only infiltrated the police force, but also the judiciary and the government itself.

Fethullah Gulen went into self-imposed exile in 1999 in the US, fleeing Turkey with a forged green passport only designated to citizens with diplomat status. The government cancelled Gulen's passport earlier this year.

A former ally of the ruling AK Party, Gulen's movement and the government fell at odds originally over the sending of the Mavi Marmara aid flotilla to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza in 2010.

In 2012, the gap between the two widened when prosecutors known to be loyal to the movement attemped to put MIT chief Hakan Fidan on trial.

In late 2013, Erdogan announced plans to close down prep schools if they cannot transform themselves into private schools. The movement, which gains a bulk of its income from these schools, claimed that they would not be able to make the transformation in time.