PanARMENIAN.Net

Two Turkish retired generals charged with "forming and organizing an
armed terror group"
29.03.2009 00:53 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ An Istanbul court has formally indicted 56 suspects,
including two retired generals, on charges of plotting to topple
Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government.

The indictment is the second to emerge from a massive investigation
into a secularist group that has stirred controversy since the
investigation began in June 2007.

Charged last July with stirring up civil unrest to encourage military
intervention, 86 suspects are already being tried in a court near
Istanbul.

This week’s charge sheet names the men prosecutors appear to think
organized the plot: Sener Eruygur, a former military police chief, and
Hursit Tolon, a former military commander. Both men, who are the
highest-ranking military officers to be arrested in Turkey’s 62-year
history of multi-party democracy, say they are innocent.

The pair are both charged with "forming and organizing an armed terror
group" and "attempting to remove the government".

Mr Eruygur is also charged in connection with the May 2006 murder of a
high court judge which triggered the secular backlash against the
ruling AK Party that ended in military threats of intervention in
April 2007. The extent of both men’s opposition to AK Party rule
became clear in 2007, when a Turkish magazine published extracts from
diaries allegedly written by an admiral detailing their role in two
failed coup attempts in 2004. Now retired, the admiral continues to
deny he wrote the diary.

Among the suspects charged were two prominent journalists ?â??
Mustafa Balbay, who is the chief journalist in Ankara for Cumhuriyet,
a secular newspaper, and Tuncay Ozkan, former owner of the secular
KanalTurk television. Several former police officials, politicians and
academics were also charged, The Independent reports.