Turkey Claims Arrest of Qatar News Agency Hackers

Five persons suspected to have hacked into the Qatar News Agency (QNA) website in April, were arrested in Turkey earlier this week.

“Our friends in Turkey answered us a short time ago. Five people were arrested and they are being investigated. Prosecutors in Qatar are working with the Turkish authorities to follow this case,” Al Jazeera quoted Ali al-Marri, Qatar’s general prosecutor, as saying on Aug. 25.

Inflammatory comments appearing on QNA attributed to Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani were reproduced in the UAE and Saudi Arabian media, despite the Qatari government denying the comments and promptly deleting the fake content.

The two countries together with Egypt and the Maldives then broke off diplomatic relations with Doha and blockaded its airspace and land access citing the QNA reports as ‘proof’ of Qatar’s hostility towards them.

However no details have been provide by the Qatari or Turkish authorities as to the identity of the arrested persons and their links to the QNA hacking.

Doha had earlier claimed that the internet protocol address from where the hacking attack had allegedly taken place had been traced to the UAE. It had also sought help of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to help trace the persons behind the hacking.