Today’s Zaman, Turkey
April 10 2010

Poyrazköy arsenal case to continue at civilian court

Judges on Friday rejected a request filed by attorneys representing
the defendants in the Poyrazköy arsenal trial to transfer the case to
a military court.

According to the decision, 17 suspects, all of whom were present at
yesterday’s hearing, will continue to be tried at the Ä°stanbul 12th
High Criminal Court before civilian judges. The 297-page indictment
against the defendants alleges that they formed a gang and were
planning to create chaos in the country and to wipe out the government
and Parliament. Fifteen of the defendants are active duty military
officers, but their trial will not take place at a military court
since the charges against them are not related to their duties, the
judges ruled yesterday.

Police unearthed a cache of 21 light anti-tank weapons (LAW), 14
grenades, 24 explosive fuses and 450 grams of C3 explosives in
Ä°stanbul’s Poyrazköy neighborhood on April 21, 2009. Five of the
suspects, including retired Maj. Levent BektaÅ?, Lt. Col. Ercan
Kireçtepe, Maj. Emre Onat and Maj. Eren Günay, are charged with
`attempting to destroy the government and Parliament using coercion
and violence’ and `membership in the Ergenekon armed terrorist
organization.’

Prosecutors demand two life sentences for each of those five
defendants for the first charge and a prison term from
seven-and-a-half years to 15 years for each of them for the second
charge. The court’s decision to keep the trial at the Ä°stanbul 12th
High Criminal Court and not transfer it to a military court came as a
relief for many of those concerned about the fate of the case since
several high-ranking military officers, including Rear Adm. Levent
Görgeç, are among the defendants. The military judiciary’s
independence from the influence of the command structure of the
Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) is of utmost concern in Turkey. Military
courts drew the ire of civil society with controversial rulings in the
past, as was the case in trial of the Å?emdinli bookstore bombing in
2005 in which two noncommissioned officers and a terrorist Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) informant were caught red-handed. The suspects
were first tried in a civilian court and sentenced to 39 years in
prison, but they were all released in the first hearing after a higher
court overruled the verdict and relayed the prosecution to a military
court.

The court also rejected a request sent by the lawyers of the
Turkish-Armenian bilingual Agos weekly, whose former editor-in-chief
Hrant Dink was shot dead while walking on a crowded avenue in front of
the weekly’s headquarters in Ä°stanbul on Jan. 19, 2007, to be
co-plaintiffs in the case. The Agos attorneys wish to take part in the
case because a CD found in BektaÅ?’s possession contains a detailed
plan codenamed `Cage’ and mentioned assassinating leaders of
non-Muslim communities in Turkey. Fethiye Ã?etin, one of the Agos
weekly’s lawyers, said the Cage plan envisaged a planned attack on
Agos and that the defendants had in their possession documents
revealing the addresses of the weekly’s subscribers.

The Cage plan was allegedly prepared to undermine the ruling Justice
and Development Party (AK Party) by assassinating prominent non-Muslim
figures in the country and putting the blame for the killings on the
party. The plot aimed to intimidate the country’s non-Muslim groups,
which would hopefully increase internal and external pressure on the
government, diminishing public support for the party, which would
eventually lead to a military takeover, according to the plan. The
second hearing of the case will be held coming Thursday.

10 April 2010, Saturday
OSMAN ARSLAN Ä°STANBUL