Tag: Ilker Basbug

Turkish ex-military chief Ilker Basbug freed from jail

“They stole 26 months from my life,” Ilker Basbug tells reporters after being released from prison

A former Turkish army chief who was sentenced to life for his role in a plot to overthrow the government has been freed from prison in Istanbul.

A local court ordered the release of Gen Ilker Basbug, a day after Turkey’s constitutional court overturned his sentence citing a legal technicality.

Gen Basbug, who was in charge of the Turkish military from 2008 to 2010, was sentenced to life in August 2013.

Dozens of people were charged over the alleged plot.

Gen Basbug was found guilty of leading a shadowy network of hard-line nationalists known as Ergenekon.

The group was said to have plotted to topple the current government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

But Gen Basbug, who has always denied the charges, walked free on Friday.

‘Rights violations’

Turkey’s constitutional court ruled on Thursday that Gen Basbug’s imprisonment had violated his rights.

The court trying him had failed to publish a detailed verdict on the case, it said.

Speaking outside the prison in Istanbul, where he had been held for over two years, Gen Basbug said: “Those who acted with hatred and revenge kept us here for 26 months. They stole 26 months from my life.”

Crowds of supporters gathered outside Silivri prison, awaiting the release of Mr Basbug

His lawyer, Ilkay Sezer, welcomed the release but said there were “many more people in jails who are suffering severe health problems and who have been victims of these courts”.

Hundreds of people were jailed in 2012 and 2013 in two high-profile cases, called Sledgehammer and Ergenekon.

In January, the high command of the armed forces and opposition both demanded a retrial for the officers.

Prime Minister Erdogan later said he favoured a retrial, in what many saw as a political turnaround.

In February, the Turkish parliament abolished the specially appointed courts that tried the officers, increasing the possibility of retrials for those convicted.

The latest ruling comes amid heightened political tensions in Turkey over alleged corruption within the government.

The ruling AK Party is rooted in Islam and has moved to curb the power of the Turkish military, which sees itself as guardian of the modern secular state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

bbc.co.uk, 7 March 2014

March 8, 2014
Turkey’s Government Should Push for More Reform After Curbing Military’s Power

A Game of Turkey

By ANDREW FINKEL

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, right, with military leaders at a ceremony in Ankara on Dec. 15.Burhan Ozbilici/Associated PressPrime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, right, with military leaders at a ceremony in Ankara on Dec. 15.

ISTANBUL — The Turkish military has long regarded it as part of its job description to guard against the governments it serves. There have been three coups in Turkey since the end of World War II. And though the last one occurred more than 30 years ago, the armed forces have not surrendered their prerogative to call politicians to heel.

So it really was a case of man-bites-dog to watch Ilker Basbug, a former chief of the army’s general staff, be hauled before a court and bundled off to jail last week on charges that he belongs to Ergenekon, an ultranationalist, terrorist organization bent on overthrowing the government. Almost as topsy-turvy is the news that the 94-year-old former president Kenan Evren was indicted on Tuesday for seizing power from a civilian government in 1980. He faces life imprisonment.

Basbug joins a growing battalion of 139 suspects in what has become known as the Ergenekon trial. The prosecutor claims that he participated in a conspiracy to take power from the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party. Specifically, he is alleged to have presided over an attempt to flood the Internet with rumors that would have undermined the government. At the very least, Basbug is guilty of believing his own propaganda that the Turkish military has a privileged place in the country’s political life.

Many pro-government columnists are celebrating these arrests as the beginning of the end of the Turkish military’s tutelary state. Yet it is far too soon to cheer. Though the government is right to remove the military’s hand from the tiller, it has been far too slow in dismantling the apparatus that the generals created; Turkey’s civilian leaders should also be reforming the system. Only this week, the prosecutor in the Ergenekon trial accused Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the opposition, of interfering with justice simply for saying that the prosecutions were politically motivated. Until such meddling with basic freedom of expression stops, Turkish democracy will have to sleep with one eye open.

Part of the problem lies with the 1982 Constitution. Penned while Turkey was under martial law, it endowed key positions within the judiciary and the bureaucracy with enormous and arbitrary authority. Its authors did not expect that those powers would one day fall into the hands of their ideological foes.

Their key nemesis has been Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who came to power in 2002 determined to fight the secular old guard by appealing to a religious and socially conservative base. In 2007, when Parliament seemed poised to select as president a man whose wife wore an Islamic headscarf, the military issued veiled threats on its official Web site. Like Dr. Frankenstein, the generals’ hearts sank to learn that their creation had got the wrong brain.

The AK Party won a handsome victory last year pledging to liberalize the 1982 Constitution. Given Turkey’s highly polarized system, this looks like a difficult promise to fulfill. An even greater obstacle may be that, having gradually conquered the bastions of the old establishment, the AK Party is now reluctant to press for reforms that could limit its own authority. It is experiencing a Frodo Baggins moment: It knows it should throw the ring of power into the fire, but the ring feels increasingly comfortable on its finger.

Yet with the generals gradually being tamed, the politicians must learn to accept responsibility when things go wrong. Faulty intelligence was responsible for the sickening air assault that claimed the lives of 35 smugglers near the Iraqi border last month: they had been mistaken for Kurdish militants. But the government has yet to offer an apology.

Andrew Finkel has been a foreign correspondent in Istanbul for over 20 years, as well as a columnist for Turkish-language newspapers. His latest book, “Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know,” will be published this year.

via Turkey’s Government Should Push for More Reform After Curbing Military’s Power – NYTimes.com.

January 12, 2012
Time for Turkey to question its militarist culture

The sight of a general like İlker Başbuğ being tried in a civil court is leading to a reappraisal of the army’s role in Turkish society

Kaya Genç
guardian.co.uk

Turkey’s former chief of staff İlker Başbuğ has been arrested, accused of being part of a failed coup against the government. Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images

The news came as a shock for many: a Turkish general, arrested. But for some, this week’s detention of İlker Başbuğ, Turkey’s former chief of staff, was a cause for celebration. It seemed to many of us as if Turkey had finally started to get to grips with its militarist culture. After all, Başbuğ is accused of being part of a failed coup against a democratically elected government. So the message sent to Turkey’s military establishment was clear: do not mess with Turkish people’s political choices.

Only a decade ago nobody would believe the sight of a Turkish general being tried in a civil court. In fact, the mere idea would be seen as an absurdity. For it was usually the other way around. People were used to Turkey’s general staff calling the shots by issuing almost daily statements on political matters, threatening Turkey’s dissidents and forcing politicians they found irritating out of office. The military apparatus was a cause of grave fear for politicians who dared not say things that might anger generals. And they had ample cause to worry: the generals once executed a prime minister, after all.

But the times are changing for Turkey’s once mighty and omnipotent commanders. When Başbuğ was detained for his alleged involvement in the coup attempt, it was difficult to separate his case from that of Kenan Evren, who is seen by Turkish socialists and conservatives alike as a man whose character is no better than Augusto Pinochet. If a civil court can successfully try and investigate a recent chief of staff (Başbuğ served from 2008 until his retirement in 2010) why not get to the bottom of things and set up a trial for the mastermind of the US-supported coup of 1980? Evren’s military rule lasted for a horrifying three years, during which time more than half a million people were detained, thousands ruthlessly tortured, others striped of citizenship and as many as 50 executed, including a 16-year-old. In fact, Evren and his generals merely continued a long-established tradition in Turkish military. They thought this was an act to save the state from the irresponsibility of civilians who should never be trusted because of their unruly behaviour.

Now it is time for the generals to get their house in order. Last week an indictment accused the 94-year-old Evren with abuses that amounted to crimes against humanity. Therefore the retirement he enjoys in Turkey’s coastal town of Marmaris may come to a disturbing end if the indictment against him is accepted by the courts this year. Should the trial be opened and he is found guilty, Evren faces life imprisonment without parole. Once symbols of military might and unlimited privileges, two retired generals of the Turkish army now represent the greatest shift of political power in this country’s history. With last year’s referendum, constitutional articles that protected them from persecution were removed and finally it is time for the victims of the 1980 coup to see their torturers being tried.

Both commanders had strong political ideas. A Turkish newspaper characterised Başbuğ as an “informed”, “hawkish”, “cool” soldier, one of the most intellectual generals within the military. Evren was a very different figure, often seen as the anti-intellectual dictator who could not stand any form of opposition. Both men felt uneasy with forms of political dissent and attempts to question their authority were decisively trampled.

“This is the biggest punishment imaginable for me,” Başbuğ said during the court hearings that led to his detention. Without a doubt he has a right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, but the mere sight of a general being tried in a civil court is among the biggest triumphs imaginable for Turkey’s democracy. Gone are the days when people kept their political views to themselves in fear of court cases by the general staff.

Nevertheless, however admirable the investigation of past military crimes proves to be, we should also have a careful look at the current generals who seem to enjoy privileges similar to those of their predecessors. It was only last week when two F16 jets killed 35 civilians that they thought were terrorists trying to cross Iraq’s border with Turkey. There were calls for a national day of mourning, which were silently ignored. Judging from what happened in the meantime, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his generals did a regrettable job of handling the case. So we should expect the cases of Başbuğ and Evren to be messages of warning to those who are currently in command of Turkey’s military apparatus: in this country nobody is immune to justice and for the mistakes you have made; you will need to answer to Turkish people.

January 11, 2012
Key website evidence destroyed by General Staff under Gen. Başbuğ

Retired Gen. İlker Başbuğ (Photo: Today’s Zaman)

8 January 2012 / GÖKSEL GENÇ, İSTANBUL

Recent details that have emerged in the trial of military officers accused of running an Internet campaign to undermine the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government, for the ultimate purpose of overthrowing it, indicate that the generals destroyed the written order for the establishment of websites used to disseminate anti-government propaganda only five months after its creation. Prosecutors note that written orders in the military should be kept for five years, but this particular order was destroyed only five months after its conception, hinting at an attempt to obscure evidence.

The İstanbul 13th High Criminal Court is hearing the case based on allegations that the General Staff put up and managed 46 websites that were created specifically to conduct an online campaign against the government. Prosecutors say this was part of a larger coup plan devised in 2003.

The court hearing the trial wrote to the General Staff on Oct. 17, 2011, requesting a copy of the initial order that led to the creation of the controversial websites. On Dec. 16, 2011, the General Staff responded to the inquiry, sending a photocopy of the order. When the court demanded to see the original, the General Staff indicated that the order, approved on Apr. 2, 2009, was destroyed on Sept. 3, 2009.

The order for the websites, judging by the photocopied version, was classified as a document in category B, which meant it should have been archived for at least five years, according to current regulations.

Sami Aktaş, a gendarmerie sergeant, said the destruction of the order was in violation of directives regarding the handling of confidential documents classified as category B. “Destruction of a category-B file before five years have passed is a crime both under the Headquarters Services Directive and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) Archives Directive.” Aktaş said those who gave the orders for the destruction of the document should be found and punished, adding a probe was called for immediately.

Meanwhile, the former head of Turkey’s armed forces, Gen. İlker Başbuğ, who was arrested last Thursday on charges of having ordered the Internet campaign, denied that he gave any orders and blamed Ret. Gen. Hasan Iğsız, the former deputy chief of General Staff, for being behind the campaign.

Turkey has seen some retired generals jailed in coup cases over the past few years, but Başbuğ, who retired in 2010, is the highest-ranking officer to be caught up so far. Başbuğ is facing charges of “establishing or administering a terrorist organization” and “seeking to unseat the government of the Republic of Turkey by force.”

Prosecutors say some 46 websites run by the military actively sought to create public discontent about the government, as part of a larger coup plot devised in 2003.

In his defense statement on Thursday, Başbuğ said he was facing allegations one-and-a-half years after his retirement, and he found it very hard to understand why his “illegal” activities were not noticed when he was on active duty and working with the president, prime minister and members of the Cabinet as a member of the National Security Council (MGK).

He said Iğsız’s signature appeared beneath the army order for the controversial websites, which prosecutors say were a deliberate smear campaign against the government.

The Taraf daily spoke to Murat Ergül, a lawyer representing Iğsız. “We don’t see his words in court as an accusation. Iğsız’s duty is not to present it to the chief of General Staff. The unit that prepared the document that was submitted to Iğsız has to submit it to the chief of General Staff. My client signed the Internet campaign document as part of the chain of command.”

Meanwhile, a lawyer for Başbuğ was quoted as saying his client should be tried in the Supreme Court -– the name the Constitutional Court assumes when trying army officers or former ministers — if he is charged with plotting to overthrow the government.

Reuters quoted lawyer İlkay Sezer as saying Başbuğ had worked in tandem with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development (AK Party) government for seven years, and he was stunned by the belated accusations against him.

“There has been no allegation of a crime until now, one and a half years following his retirement. … He says it is beyond his comprehension,” the news agency quoted Sezer as saying.

Sezer said any indictment should be framed by the Supreme Court of Appeals, and the case heard by Turkey’s top court.

The retired chief is also accused of leading a gang of anti-government conspirators.

There were small pro-military protests in the cities of Bursa, Mersin and Afyon on Saturday, involving a couple hundred people, according to newspaper reports. The protesters carried Turkish flags and banners that read, “Not a submissive but resistant army” and “Army and people, hand in hand.”

The case is linked to Ergenekon, an alleged ultra-nationalist network police say they first unearthed in 2007. Hundreds of people have been jailed in the investigation, including journalists, academics, lawyers and military officers.

One of Erdoğan’s four deputy prime ministers, Bülent Arınç, said on Saturday he hoped the legal process would be speedy and distance the government from the case. “I hope the court process on Başbuğ is completed as soon as possible,” he said. “Nobody has the luxury to commit crimes in Turkey, and the judiciary is independent.”

January 9, 2012
Turkey’s custody laws draw flak after general held

By Simon Cameron-Moore

ISTANBUL | Sat Jan 7, 2012 1:15pm EST

(Reuters) – A day after the jailing of Turkey’s former military chief, pending possible trial on accusations he tried to overthrow the government, newspaper columnists criticized the authorities for failing to reform sweeping pre-trial custody laws.

An Istanbul court sent shockwaves through Turkey by sending General Ilker Basbug to Silivri prison, west of Istanbul, on Friday. The prosecution has yet to lay formal charges against the man who was chief of staff from 2008 to 2010.

While pro-government newspapers hailed the decision as a triumph for democracy, demonstrating no one was above the law, other commentators said his imprisonment highlighted a need for legal reform to rein in powers to arrest and detain.

Mustafa Aykol, a writer often cited as sympathetic to the ruling AK Party, said the penal code referring to “helping a terrorist organization” risked being used to criminalize an ideology.

“Turkey’s arresting machine, as it has always done, can easily put suspects in prison for years, for accusations that sometimes look very overblown,” he wrote in the Hurriyet Daily News in a commentary headlined “Turkey’s arresting machine gone mad.”

Basbug is accused of involvement in the spread of negative propaganda on websites against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which swept to power in 2002 and won a third term last June with 50 percent of the vote.

Tensions between the staunchly secularist military and the Islamist-rooted AK Party are long-held, though the party shuns the Islamist label and calls itself socially conservative.

Some 58 serving and 81 retired generals and admirals are in custody, suspected of involvement in plots against Erdogan’s government.

Basbug is also accused of having ties with an ultra-nationalist network dubbed “Ergenekon,” that police said they discovered in 2007.

Mehmet Ali Birand, one of Turkey’s leading columnists, said the case against Basbug was implausible and his jailing provided further evidence of an unjust system.

“We shall never break this vicious cycle unless the disgraceful practice of arresting, pending trial, comes to an end, he wrote in Hurriyet.

“The parties responsible for this freak show are none other than political authorities who just don’t want to fix the situation.”

GOVERNMENT LOOKING AT LAWS

Some critics say the government has used the probe to silence opposition and cow the military.

The government denies any such a motive but Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said Friday that the government had taken note of the criticism.

Hundreds of people, including retired and serving military officers, journalists, academics and lawyers, have been detained since 2007 under the widening Ergenekon investigation. Many have yet to face trial.

Atalay said new regulations governing custody orders and arrests may be introduced along with measures to speed up the judicial process.

Basbug’s lawyer is expected to appeal in the coming days against the court’s order that the general be remanded in custody while the prosecution builds its case.

Some observers point out that Basbug is hardly a flight risk given he is well known, nor could he interfere with the investigation – one reason for remanding suspects in custody – as the probe goes back to 2008.

In the past the military, which overthrew four governments between 1960 and 1997, could count on support from senior judges until Erdogan introduced reforms in 2010 that changed the way judges were selected.

Ahmet Altan, the editor of Taraf, regarded as an anti-military newspaper that has broken many of the Ergenekon stories, suspected the ruling party had its own motives in being reluctant to reform legal processes.

“The AK Party has the opportunity and power to change this country, to set up a new system, and the reason why it’s not doing so is because it enjoys the amazing power offered by the darkness.”

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Ben Harding)

via Turkey’s custody laws draw flak after general held | Reuters.

January 8, 2012
Turkey Arrests Ex-Chief of Military, Gen. Ilker Basbug

By SEBNEM ARSU

ISTANBUL — In an unprecedented move, a civilian court ordered the arrest of Turkey’s former head of the army, the highest-ranking officer so far to be charged with leadership of an illegal network accused of seeking to overthrow the government, news outlets reported late Thursday.

Gen. Ilker Basbug, center, the former chief of the Turkish Army, arrived at a courthouse in Istanbul on Thursday.

Burhan Ozbilici/Associated Press

General Basbug in 2010.

Gen. Ilker Basbug, who was the chief of the army’s general staff from 2008 until his retirement in 2010, denied the charges, calling it a tragicomedy that the former commander of one of the world’s strongest armies would be accused of belonging to a terrorist organization, according to NTV, a private television station.

“It is very sad, and hard to understand,” he said during a 12-hour interrogation, NTV said. “If authorities have failed to discover any of this misconduct that I am claimed to have committed in active duty, then all is incomprehensible.”

The civilian court in Istanbul ordered the general jailed pending his trial on charges of seeking to overthrow the government.

His arrest appeared to be the latest skirmish in a power struggle between the pro-Islamic governing party, Justice and Development, and the secular establishment, which includes the army.

The government has jailed more than 300 people, including more than 200 active or retired military officers, as part of an investigation into what is said to be a plot in 2003 by the ultranationalist Ergenekon network to bomb mosques, assassinate prominent figures or start wars to stir chaos and prepare the grounds for a military coup.

No one has yet been convicted.

The military, which has long seen itself as the defender of Turkey’s secular Constitution, has carried out three successful coups. The governing party, which is rooted in a banned Islamist group, has insisted that the military is no longer beyond the law. The party has said that it is building a religiously tolerant democracy.

The rivalry intensified in July when the chief of the armed forces and the commanders of the navy, army and air force resigned en masse to protest the arrests of dozens of generals in conspiracy investigations they contend are politically motivated.

Human rights activists say the government is using the courts to intimidate opponents, and have expressed concern that suspects who could be tried in freedom are routinely jailed.

The detainees include 97 journalists, publishers and other members of the media, raising concerns that the arrests are intended to silence critics.

The government’s heavy hand in these cases has tarnished Turkey’s image as a model of democracy in the Muslim world and raised questions about its candidacy for membership in the European Union.

In the hearing on Thursday, the court also questioned General Basbug’s motives for public statements he made discrediting the findings of security operations against those suspected of being coup plotters, one of his lawyers said in a televised statement.

General Basbug reportedly replied that none of his statements had any hidden agenda except to bolster the morale of soldiers under his command.

The general was arrested after a number of other former military officers in a parallel court case claimed that antigovernment Web sites that they had set up had been primarily ordered by General Basbug, claims that he denied.

In Washington, the State Department said that it was monitoring the trial and that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had urged Turkish authorities during her visit to Istanbul last fall to address concerns about freedom of expression.

“We are watching this carefully and continuing to make clear our strong concerns about press freedom in Turkey to the Turkish government,” a State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said at a news briefing on Thursday.

She added: “We have to see whether this trial goes forward in a manner that is consistent with international standards, consistent with international human rights. So that’s the standard by which we’ll judge it.”

A version of this article appeared in print on January 6, 2012, on page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Ex-Chief of Turkish Army Is Arrested In Widening Case Alleging Coup Plot.

via Turkey Arrests Ex-Chief of Military, Gen. Ilker Basbug – NYTimes.com.

January 6, 2012