Baku/06.01.14/Turan : Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he supports the retrial of the several hundred officers , convicted on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government in 2003, according to RBC reports citing BBC. The sentences were passed in autumn 2012. During the trial defendants denied the allegations, saying that there was no conspiracy , and there were regular military exercises.
According to Turan agency, the Chief of the Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces in 2008-2010, Ilker Bashbug, who is serving a life sentence in the case of a coup, noted in his forthcoming book that the alleged attempts on creation illegal armed groups are insult to the Turkish army and the Turkish officers. Several officers, regarding such accusations as a shame, shot themselves from their standard weapons. It was a form of protest against the actions of the political leadership, said Bashbug.
Earlier, the Turkish military appealed on several lawsuits, where the defendants were officers.
"If the courts accept the claim, the retrial of the case would be virtually guaranteed," said Haluk Pecsen, one of the lawyers in the case of "Ergenekon" when about 300 officers were convicted to long prison terms for allegedly plotting.
The appeal was filed at a time when the authority of the government headed by Tayyip Erdogan was strongly undermined by the widespread corruption scandal that caused the resignation of three cabinet ministers, whose sons were among those arrested, and caused great concern in the community about the independence of the judiciary system. Erdogan himself argues that the scandal was the result of collusion, managed by anti-Turkish forces abroad, in order to weaken his authority. Earlier, the adviser of Erdogan suggested that officers convicted on false charges, instigated by police and judicial authorities.
According to experts, the case on military conspiracy became an attempt to weaken the influence of the Turkish armed forces in the political process in the country. In the postwar history the Turkish armed forces, which are traditionally were considered the support of secular part of society, three times staged coups: in 1960, in 1971, and in 1980.—0--
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