ISTANBUL — An Istanbul prosecutor who had been overseeing a sprawling corruption investigation of the prime minister's inner circle was removed from the case Thursday, in a new sign of a profound power struggle within Turkey's judiciary and police forces.
In leaving his job under pressure, prosecutor Muammer Akkas issued a condemnation of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, accusing it of interfering in the judiciary and preventing him from carrying out his work.
Akkas said the government had prevented the police forces from pursuing a new round of suspects — including, according to several Turkish media reports, Erdogan's son, whose name was on a summons to appear as a suspect that was leaked to the media Thursday.
"The judiciary has clearly been pressured," he said in the written statement, charging his superiors with "committing a crime" for not carrying out arrest warrants and saying that suspects had been allowed to "take precautions, flee, and tamper with evidence."
Erdogan told the daily newspaper Hurriyet on Thursday he believed that he was the ultimate target of the investigation, but he said those who tried to embroil him in it would be "left empty-handed."
The prosecutor's removal came a day after the resignations of three ministers whose sons had been implicated. One of them, the environment and urban planning minister, Erdogan Bayraktar, called for the prime minister to resign, too.
The scandal has done significant political damage to Erdogan, who has been in power more than a decade and was considered a probable candidate in next summer's presidential election.