July 19, 2010

Plan to discredit civilian probe into colonel’s plot runs like clockwork

Betül Akkaya Demirbaş

It has been one year since the exposure of a suspected military plan to undermine the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the faith-based Gülen movement, which was hoped would lead to a coup d’état, and Turkey has witnessed many attempts -- not only from the military but also from the media and the judiciary -- to discredit an ongoing civilian probe into the plan.

On June 11, 2009, the liberal Taraf daily printed documents seized in the office of Serdar Öztürk, the lawyer of a retired colonel arrested last year on charges of membership in Ergenekon, a clandestine criminal organization charged with plotting to overthrow the government.