Istanbul: Turkey has suspended five prosecutors working on a contentious investigation into an alleged delivery of arms for Syrian rebels that was intercepted on the border last year, media reports said yesterday.
The top Turkish judicial committee said the decision was taken so as not to hamper the inquiry or tarnish the reputation of the judiciary, the official Anatolia news agency reported.
The move came a day after Turkey imposed an all-out media blackout, including on Facebook and Twitter, prohibiting publication of reports on the issue.
In January last year, Turkish police stopped and seized seven trucks near the Syrian border that were suspected of smuggling weapons into Syria.
The move came as the government in Ankara denied suspicions it was aiding rebel forces fighting the regime of President Bashar Al Assad. A series of documents were then leaked on the Internet indicating that the seized trucks were actually National Intelligence Agency (MIT) vehicles delivering weapons to Syrian Islamist rebels fighting President Bashar Al Assad.
