Eighteen more officers arrested in coup plot case
Turkish police on Friday detained 18 soldiers in a second wave of arrests over an alleged 2003 coup plot, according to the NTV news channel. In what is seen as a trial of strength between the AKP government and secular forces, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that “no-one is above the law”.
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The latest suspects include one retired officer and the head of the paramilitary force in the central province of Konya, NTV says.
So far 31 retired and active-duty soldiers have been charged for alleged involvement in “Operation Sledgehammer”. The plot is alleged to have involved plans to bomb mosques and provoke tension with Greece to force the downing of a Turkish jet, providing an excuse to bring down the government.
Q+A: Ankara correspondent Jasper Mortimer
“About 70 officers have been detained so far,” reports Ankara correspondent Jasper Mortimer. “Thirty-one have been charged with plotting coups and put in prison. Of those 31, 11 are generals and admirals.
“Never before has there been such a large crackdown on the general staff in Turkey.”
Two of the admirals are still serving, he adds.
“The Chief of Staff [General Ilker Basbug] has had to approve the Chief of Police arresting officers whom he was serving under five or six years ago, which must have been very uncomfortable for him, and he’s come under tremendous pressure from his subordinate generals and admirals to try and put a stop to this.”
But taking such action will only hurt the army’s image, Mortimer says.
“Those who make plans behind closed doors to crush the people’s will must see that from now on they will face justice,” Erdogan told a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
“What is happening today is normalisation … these are the footsteps of an advanced democracy,” Erdogan declared. The military has ousted four governments since 1960 and he government argues that the clampdown is an attempt to make the military subject to civilian government, as in European democracies.
Retired four-star General Cetin Dogan, who is being questioned by prosecutors, has said that the evidence is a doctored version of discussions on contingency plans for potential unrest involving Islamist movements along with a threat of war.
Erdogan’s AKP originated in a reformist split from the Islamist Virtue Party, which was banned in 2001.
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