Turkish court orders arrest of 102 suspects, including former generals, in alleged coup plot

Turkish court orders arrest of 102 in coup plot

ANKARA, Turkey — A court ordered the arrest Friday of 102 people, including at least three retired military commanders, to be jailed pending trial on charges of conspiring in 2003 to overthrow the Islamic-rooted government in a coup plot.

The court set the trial date as Dec. 16. It had indicted a total of 196 people on Monday, accusing them of planning to create chaos and pave the way for a military takeover in an alleged conspiracy dubbed “Sledgehammer.”

Police are now expected to round up 102 of those people, including Ret. Gen. Dogan Cetin, former commander of Turkey’s first army, former naval force commander Ozden Ornek and former air force commander Ibrahim Firtina. The rest of those indicted will remain free.

The accused face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of attempting to bring down the government and having membership in an illegal organization.

Most were detained in February — but subsequently released — after a newspaper, Taraf, published what it said were leaked copies of documents detailing their plans. The newspaper claimed the officers and others plotted to blow up mosques in the hopes of stirring chaos that could trigger a military takeover, and even planned to turn stadiums into open-air prisons capable of holding tens of thousands of people if they challenged the troops. The newspaper handed over the documents to prosecutors.

The military, which has overthrown four governments since 1960, has denied such a plot, insisting the documents were from a military training seminar during which officers simulated an internal strife scenario.

More than 400 people, including pro-secular academics, journalists and politicians and soldiers, are already on trial on separate charges of plotting to bring down the government. That group is suspected in attacks on a newspaper and a courthouse, and plots to kill Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.

Critics allege the cases are built on flimsy evidence and illegal wiretaps. They say the accusations are a government attempt to silence opponents who accuse Erdogan of trying to undermine Turkey’s secular Constitution, a charge that he denies.

The court cases reflect the growing confidence of civilian power in Turkey, whose politics were once dominated by the military.