ERGENEKON TRIAL ADJOURNED UNTIL THURSDAY

Today’s Zaman
Jan 20 2009
Turkey

The Ergenekon trial, involving the case of a clandestine terrorist
organization charged with attempting to create chaos and undermine
stability in order to trigger a coup, has been adjourned until Thursday
by the Ä°stanbul 13th Higher Criminal Court.

The 86 suspects in the trial are being tried at a prison complex
in Silivri, Ä°stanbul province, where the suspects in custody are
being kept.

The court yesterday announced it adjourned until Thursday to review
a petition by two lawyers to appoint new judges to the case.

In yesterday’s trial, Workers’ Party (Ä°P) leader Dogu Perincek and
other Ä°P-affiliated suspects were expected to deliver their defense
testimonies. The İP suspects, including Perincek, İP Aydınlık
journal Editor-in-Chief Ferit Ä°lsever and other members of the
Aydınlık movement, including Adnan Akfırat, Hikmet Cicek, Hayati
Ozcan and Ä°P Secretary-General Nusret Senem, are expected to explain
numerous allegations regarding assassination plans and secret meetings
to overthrow the elected government, based on evidence found during
raids into Ä°P offices and the suspects’ homes.

Ergenekon prosecutors deserve respect

Those conducting the "clean hands" operation in Turkey deserve respect,
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday while speaking
to the Turkish community of Hasselt, Belgium. The prime minister,
on his first visit to Belgium in four years, hopes to resuscitate
Turkey’s flagging efforts to join the European Union.

Erdogan referred to the Ergenekon operation as "Turkey’s clean hands
operation." A similar operation in Italy removed the remnants of
Operation Gladio, a NATO stay-behind paramilitary force left over
from the Cold War, in a judicial process similar to that of Ergenekon.

The prime minister criticized those who called the Ergenekon operation
a government witch hunt targeting its opponents. "There are those who
are uneasy because we are poking a stick into the beehive. Everything
will be done within the confines of the law. Those who cited Italy’s
Clean Hands Operation as an example for Turkey to follow should
now respect those conducting Turkey’s own clean hands [operation],"
the prime minister said.

Accusations against the suspects

The indictment into the group claims the Ergenekon network is behind
a series of political assassinations over the past two decades. The
victims include a secularist journalist, Ugur Mumcu, long believed to
have been assassinated by Islamic extremists in 1993; the head of a
business conglomerate, Ozdemir Sabancı, who was shot dead by militants
of the extreme-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front
(DHKP/C) in his high-security office in 1996; secularist academic
Necip Hablemitoglu, who was also believed to have been killed by
Islamic extremists, in 2002; and a 2006 attack on the Council of State
that left a senior judge dead. Alparslan Arslan, found guilty of the
Council of State killing, said he attacked the court in protest of an
anti-headscarf ruling it had made. But the indictment contains evidence
that he was connected with Ergenekon and that his family received
large sums of money from unidentified sources after the shooting.

The indictment also says Veli Kucuk, believed to be one of the leading
members of the network, had threatened Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian
journalist slain by a teenager in 2007, before his murder — a sign
that Ergenekon could be behind that murder as well.

Suspects face various accusations, including "membership in an
armed terrorist group," "attempting to destroy the government,"
"inciting people to rebel against the Republic of Turkey" and other
similar crimes.

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