ISTANBUL: A Turkish court yesterday ordered the release of 230 military officers convicted of plotting to topple Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a day after the country’s top court ruled their trial was flawed.
The wife of one senior commander, held in prison for four years, described her husband’s coming release as a “bittersweet happiness”, and said the officers would “continue to fight for this country” after their release.
The Turkish military said it “shared the joy of the families of retired and active staff who have regained their freedom” and said it hoped a retrial would now lead to a just verdict.
The 2010-2012 “Sledgehammer” trial marked a high-point in Erdogan’s drive to tame an army that for decades had dominated politics. Critics accused Erdogan at the time of using the courts to pursue a “witchhunt” against the generals.
In consigning hundreds of senior serving as well as retired officers to jail, the case eroded the authority and power of Nato’s second biggest army while tension on borders with Syria and Iraq demanded increased commitments.
Defence lawyer Huseyin Ersoz said the officers were expected to be released within a few hours.
The constitutional court ruled on Wednesday that the officers’ rights had been violated in the handling of digital evidence and the refusal to hear testimony from two former top military commanders as requested by defendants.
“Obviously I’am happy my husband is being released but it is a bittersweet happiness,” Nilgul Dogan, wife of chief suspect, former First Army commander General Cetin Dogan, said. “These people were held unjustly in jail for four years due to a fabricated, wrongful, unjust trial. They must give account to us for those four years. After our husbands have rested for some time, we will continue to fight for this country for our children and grandchildren.”
Erdogan, his primacy over the army established, said early this year he was open to the idea of a retrial. Officials had suggested evidence had been manipulated by an influential Islamic cleric who had been using influence in police and judiciary to help Erdogan break the army’s power. Cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan turned bitter rival, denies any involvement in Sledgehammer and in a corruption investigation against Erdogan associates.
REUTERS
