Tag: sledgehammer

By David Pryce-Jones

Turkey has just held show trials that bear comparison to the judicial monstrosities staged in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Three hundred senior military officers, some serving and some retired, have been handed long prison sentences. They have been accused of belonging to a terrorist organization called Ergenekon that back in 2003 was plotting the overthrow of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The trials began in 2007. They are a disgrace. The plotters are alleged to have been intending to bomb mosques, shoot down a Turkish military aircraft and other improbabilities of the sort. The “evidence” offered by the prosecution is full of anachronisms, forgeries and other evident fabrications. The defense was not permitted to call witnesses in a position to expose the nonsense.

It is true that the military have staged coups in the recent Turkish past, not in their own interest but to preserve the secular modernizing state that replaced the old Ottoman Empire. Erdogan can now be seen to have taken the major strategic decision to re-align the country as an Islamist state. To that end, he had to neutralize the army. He could never have obtained 20-year prison sentences for innocent officers unless he had already purged the judiciary and installed Islamist yes-men. Similarly the media. Turkey is the country with the highest number of journalists in prison.

The balance of power is shifting again against the West. Turkey has renounced its status as a democracy. Suspecting that membership of the European Union was more and more probable, Turkey is instead choosing to become the leader of Sunni Islamism. Opposition to Shiite Iran and its Syrian protectorate follows, although just a short while ago Erdogan was supporting them whole-heartedly and claiming to have zero problems with neighbors. The new Islamism demands rupture with Israel and identification with Hamas.

President Obama is happy to tell everyone that he is in the habit of telephoning Erdogan frequently. He does not denounce the show trials and seems unaware that his chat-line friend in Ankara has changed.

via Turkey’s New Islamism – By David Pryce-Jones – David Calling – National Review Online.

In my trade you get used to it after a while, but the first time you wake up to find a military coup has happened overnight where you live is quite alarming. That was in Turkey back in 1971, when the army seized control of the country after months of political turmoil. It was not as bad as the 1960 coup, when the military authorities tried and hanged the prime minister, but it was bad enough.

There were two more coups in Turkey: In 1980, when half a million were arrested, tens of thousands were tortured and 50 were executed, and 1997, a “post-modern” coup in which the army simply ordered the prime minister to resign.

But there will be no more coups in Turkey: The army has finally been forced to bow to a democratically elected government.

Last Friday, a Turkish court sentenced

330 people, almost all military officers, to prison for their involvement in a coup plot in 2003. They included the former heads of the army, navy and air force, who received sentences of 20 years each, and six other generals.

Five years ago, nobody in Turkey could have imagined such a thing. The military was above the law, with the sacred mission of defending the secular state from being undermined by people who mixed religion with politics.

This was the duty the 330 officers thought they were performing in 2003, according to the indictments against them. The Justice and Development Party (AKP), a moderate Islamic party espousing conservative social values, had come to power after the 2002 election: The voters had got it wrong again, and their mistake had to be corrected.

With public opinion abroad and at home increasingly hostile to military coups, a better pretext was needed than in the old days. So the plot, Operation Sledgehammer, involved bomb attacks on two major mosques in Istanbul, a Turkish fighter jet shot down by the Greeks and an attack on a military museum by Islamic militants. The real attackers would actually be the military themselves. The accused 330 claimed Operation Sledgehammer was just a scenario for a military exercise, and the documents supporting the accusations have never been properly attributed. But given the army’s track record of four coups in 50 years and its deeply rooted hostility to Islamic parties, the charges were plausible, and the court believed them.

The army has no choice but to accept the court’s judgment. The AK party has been re-elected twice with increasing majorities, the party’s pious leaders have not tried to shove their values down everybody else’s throats, and the economy has flourished. Even now, many in Turkey still think the army is there to protect them from the oppression of the religious fanatics, and that any attempt to curb its power is a conspiracy against the secular, neutral state.

But the Turkish secular state has never been neutral. From the time Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his companions rescued Turkey from the wreckage of the Ottoman empire after the First World War, the state was at war with religion.

But today’s Turkey is modern, powerful and prosperous, and there is no external threat.

It’s time for the Turkish army to stop waging a cold war against the devoutly religious. They are entitled to the full rights of citizenship, too.

That was the significance of AK’s victories in the past three elections, and of the trials that have finally brought the army under control. The head of the Turkish armed forces and all three service chiefs resigned in July in protest against the trials of military personnel, but President Abdullah Gul promptly appointed a new head of the armed forces — who tamely accepted the post. It’s over.

— Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

via Dwyer: Turkey makes peace with religion | Column | Opinion | The London Free Press.

A historic trial

The army condemned

Sep 29th 2012 | ISTANBUL | from the print edition

WAS justice served? The question has been raging ever since a special Istanbul security court on September 21st handed down sentences ranging from six to 20 years against 325 officers accused of seeking to overthrow Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party in 2003. The trial called “Sledgehammer” was heralded as a historic turning point for Turkey’s wobbly democracy. For the first time civilian prosecutors had charged officers, including two former generals and a former admiral, for alleged coup-plotting, as part of a broader conspiracy known as Ergenekon, under which hundreds of other officers of varying ranks are also facing trial.

In the event it seems that the overriding goal was not so much to bring justice but a strong message to would-be coup-plotters of the consequences they are likely to face. Some go as far as to argue that the trial was merely an exercise in revenge for the army’s long history of intervention in politics (it has ejected four governments since 1960) and for its brutal suppression of any overt expression of Muslim piety in the name of defending Ataturk’s secular republic. Either way, the case has been bedevilled by allegations of sexed-up evidence and partisanship.

Many of the inconsistencies have been catalogued by Dani Rodrik, a Harvard economist, in a blog. His father-in-law Cetin Dogan, an arch-secularist former general, was the chief suspect in the Sledgehammer plot, which allegedly contemplated the bombing of mosques, the murders of Christians and the downing of a Turkish fighter jet. Much of the evidence is contained in a single CD dated 2003 when the coup plans were said to have been hatched. Yet the same CD cites companies that did not exist at the time. Two prosecutors who called for the suspects to be released on bail were promptly dismissed and key witnesses for the defence were never heard.

The defence alleges that the tampering was done by Turkey’s most influential Islamic fraternity, named after its leader, Fetullah Gulen, a moderate imam who lives in self-imposed exile in America. It is impossible to prove but the “Gulenists” are said to have infiltrated the ranks of the police force in order to counterbalance the influence of the generals who have hounded them for decades. Moreover, thanks to constitutional changes brought in by AK in 2010, the army has lost its hold over the judiciary. The result, the defence argues, is that pro-Gulenist judges are swelling its ranks. Never mind that secret recordings of their conversations reveal that the generals were discussing how to get rid of AK, that they openly threatened an “intervention” in 2007 or that they egged on now-retired pro-secular prosecutors to launch a case to close down AK in 2008. In the event it was overturned by a single vote. “The perceived lack of an independent judiciary is among Turkey’s biggest problems,” says a Western diplomat.

Still, the case is by no means over. The defence can appeal to a higher court. Should this court uphold the verdict, they can turn to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, but not before passing through Turkey’s constitutional court.

It remains uncertain whether the generals will get a sympathetic hearing. Already, Hilmi Ozkok, who was the Chief of General Staff when the coup blueprints were allegedly conceived, appeared to suggest that he did not believe the trial was flawed. “I was upset by the verdict” the former general said “but not surprised.”

via Turkish politics: A historic trial | The Economist.

Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Demonstrators outside the Turkish Parliament in Ankara on Sept. 22, after a court ruled that hundreds of senior military officers were guilty in a coup plot they called Sledgehammer.

ISTANBUL — A Turkish court’s conviction on Friday of 325 senior military officers for plotting to overthrow the state has left me with mixed feelings. Like many Turks, I’ve been pondering a host of questions: Was this justice or revenge? Is this the final curtain on a military that for decades believed it knew better than the elected politicians? Or was the 21-month courtroom drama the latest show trial, manipulated by a government that itself entertains delusions of grandeur?

My mixed feelings are compounded by my working relationship with the newspaper that broke the case open and also by an acquaintance with one of the key defendants — a former army commander who received the maximum sentence of 20 years.

There is no ambivalence about the seriousness of the charges. The prosecutor accused the senior military commanders of plotting a coup d’etat. Following the election in 2002 of what the military saw as a pro-Islamic government, these leaders planned violent provocations — including an armed confrontation with Greece and the bombing during Friday prayers of a famous Istanbul mosque — that would end in the coup. The military’s code word for the operation was Sledgehammer.

The defense pooh-poohed the notion that there was a serious coup attempt and questioned the motives of the court for refusing to hear expert testimony that much of the evidence consisted of badly executed electronic forgeries.

My own conclusion, reached purely on gut reaction and not from careful perusal of a warehouse-load of documents, is that many of the suspects, though probably not all, were guilty of something. A military that has historically taken a prominent role in politics, has staged repeated coups and, as recently as 2007, has warned Parliament about whom they should and should not elect as president, could always strike again.

Yet, the prosecution was ham-fisted and the judges refused to allow proper cross examination. The case will now wind its way to higher courts and possibly to the European Court of Human Rights.

I have friends who argue that you can’t blame the courts for indulging in a bit of rough justice against such a powerful foe. But this argument — that you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs — is precisely the argument used by other friends that say Turkey is not ready for full democracy.

I felt the full brunt of Turkey’s particular form of justice some 15 years ago when I was put on trial for “causing the military to be held in contempt,” which then carried a maximum sentence of six years.

I had written that the Turkish Army had learned from its mistakes during its campaign against Kurdish rebels and was at least trying not to behave like an army of occupation. This was seen as far-too-faint praise by a public prosecutor. I was put on trial, but in the end, the case was dropped under a general amnesty for “offenses committed with the printed word.”

It has crossed my mind that had the military been more accepting of criticism back then, it would not be in the mess it’s in now. It faces a constant barrage of criticism for incompetence — over the deaths of 34 civilians in an anti-terrorism operation gone wrong last December along the Iraqi border, to the dozens of deaths earlier this month in Bingol when Kurdish militants attacked a poorly guarded convoy. There have been no public explanations and no promises of inquiries.

Sledgehammer is just the first of a series of trials against senior officers. Even before the verdict, the government had almost certainly succeeded in clipping the military’s desire to get involved again in politics. The question now is whether the armed forces, badly demoralized, are still fit for purpose. The military needs to be made truly accountable and undergo a process of reform.

Andrew Finkel has been a foreign correspondent in Istanbul for over 20 years, as well as a columnist for Turkish-language newspapers. He is the author of the book “Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know.”

via Will Turkey’s Military Finally Get Its Act Together? – NYTimes.com.

Wives and relatives of retired and active military officers charged in the so-called Sledgehammer trial march under a huge Turkish flag during a protest at Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of secular Turkey, in Ankara, Feb. 19, 2011. (photo by REUTERS/Umit Bektas)

posted on Monday, Sep 24, 2012

When I heard the Sledgehammer sentences [which saw more than 300 Turkish military personnel imprisoned for their role in an attempted coup a decade ago], I first remembered the sentencing of the Greek junta. The leaders of the junta that came to power with a military coup and ruled Greece between 1967-1974 with a heavy hand were detained in January 1975 and brought to trial in July with charges of “high treason.”

About this Article

Summary:

Turkey’s Sledgehammer trials, like the Nuremberg trials in Germany and the sentencing of the Greek junta, were a watershed moment, writes Cengiz Candar, marking the end of military domination and the beginning of civilian rule.

Publisher: Radikal (Turkey)

Original Title:

Sledgehammer Trials: Turkey’s Nurnberg

Published on: Monday, Sep 24, 2012

Translated on: Monday, Sep 24, 2012

Translated by: Timur Goksel

Categories : Turkey

It took only until Aug. 25 — that is, less than a month — to sentence them to long prison terms in the trial held at Korydallos Prison. Three of the top four were sentenced to death by a firing squad and a fourth to life in jail.

The government of [former Greek prime minister Kostas] Karamanlis converted the death sentences to life imprisonment. Thirteen other generals were also sentenced to life, five generals to 20 years each and two were acquitted.

[Coup leader Colonel Georgios] Papadopoulos died in prison in 1999; [Brig. Gen. Dimitrios] Ioannides in 2010. [Brig. Stylianos] Pattakos and [Colonel Nikolaos] Makarezos spent their last years in hospital due to illness. There was an attempt to issue an amnesty to the junta in 1990 but, faced by harsh public reaction, the government of [former prime minister Konstantinos] Mitsotakis did not pursue it.

The case of the Greek junta, in an allusion to the Nuremberg trials of the German Nazi regime, became known as the “Nuremberg of Greece.” Is it possible to label the Sledgehammer case as the “Nuremberg of Turkey”?

It is important to recall the Greek junta affair because many Turkish democrats kept on comparing Turkey’s coup makers with the Greek junta. The Greek case was seen as a landmark that would forever rule out a military regime in Greece while in Turkey we were still perceiving “the regime’s military tutelage” as the unalterable fate of the country.

Looking from this point of view, yes, Sledgehammer may well be labeled the “Nuremberg of Turkey.” We now have a solid reason to think that the time of military coups and military interventions is over.

The Sledgehammer case will be a deterring precedent to any military personnel who, with the pretext and excuse of “saving the country,” might think of staging military coups. The historical significance of this trial is more related to its political aspects, as there are plenty of doubts about the legal aspects of how the trials were conducted and the sentences passed.

A total of 325 military personnel were given stiff prison sentences for “unaccomplished coup attempts” — 36 were acquitted. Three senior commanders were given life sentences which were later to reduced to 20 years on grounds of “unaccomplished attempt.” In addition, 78 people got 18 years, 214 got 16 years, one got 15 years, 18 got 13 years, four months and another got six years in prison. Among them are 24 generals on active duty.

This is really a shocking outcome. Apart from the political ramifications of the case, there has been much said about falsified evidence. Although we haven’t yet heard the detailed decisions, among the evidence used were incompatible dates, experts’ testimonies ignored by the court, witnesses not called and the names of those who were not even present in the 1st Army Plan seminar in Istanbul that constituted the basis of the trial.

The perception that the court did not consider the objections of the defense and counterclaims has become so widespread that this truly legitimate case against a coup attempt became a topic of debate even before the sentences were passed.

If no solid responses can be found to the claims of legal breaches and errors, decisions in the Sledgehammer case will be severely damaged from “legal and justice” perspectives. But we should not forget that Turkey had coups and their fomenters since the May 27, 1960, military coup.

Then there was the March 12 military intervention, the September 12 military coup and the Feb. 28, 1997 “postmodern coup” that fully confirmed the existence of military tutelage in our country.

As such, the Sledgehammer case has a political significance of putting an end to “military tutelage” and severely diminishing the coup mindset.

But there is no automatic assurance that we have transitioned democracy from military tutelage, given the claims of legal violations in the trial. We can speak of a long and tough road ahead with the appeals process that will follow.

Going to back the question: “Is Sledgehammer case Turkey’s Nuremberg?”

Yes, it is Turkey’s Nuremberg.

via The Sledgehammer Trials: Were They Turkey’s Nuremberg? – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.