20 year-term for coup plot
ISTANBUL - Doğan News Agency
Retired Gen. Çetin Doğan is one of the suspects in the case. AA photo
Prosecutors in the “Balyoz” (Sledgehammer) case have demanded prison sentences of between 15 and 20 years for each of the coup-plot case’s 365 suspects.Specially authorized prosecutors Savaş Kırbaş and Hüseyin Kaplan presented a 920-page deliberation document to the court yesterday, asking for prison terms for all suspects in the case, 250 of whom are on trial under arrest on charges of attempting a coup.
One of the key suspects in the case, retired Gen. Çetin Doğan, left the courtroom yesterday as the prosecutors read out the charges.
The suspects, which include both active duty and retired military personnel as well as some civilians, are accused of plotting to overthrow the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2003.
Meanwhile, a team of experts from Istanbul’s Yıldız Technical University concluded in a report that the digital documents presented as evidence in the case feature some inconsistencies, indicating that they may have been fabricated.
Sixty-six documents contained on three CDs that were allegedly written in 2003 utilized the “Calibri” writing font, whose development did not begin until 2004 and which was not released onto the market until 2007, according to the report prepared by Professor Coşkun Sönmez and Dr. Özgür Bozkurt.
The three CDs constitute the principal basis of the Balyoz case and contain the “main action plans,” according to reports.
The report also said 80 documents contained on the CDs in question bore the extension “.XML,” which was also not released onto the market until 2007.
The experts’ findings were consistent with the results of another examination undertaken by U.S.-based consultant firm Arsenal upon the request of Doğan’s lawyers.
Another team of experts chosen by both military officials and the defendants’ lawyers had found a number of inconsistencies in the digital documents allegedly sent to daily Taraf columnist Mehmet Baransu, who originally broke the story over two years ago.
The documents sent to Baransu and allegedly dated to 2003 included a list of infantry and administrative personnel, but the troops and staff in question were only assigned to those posts in 2007, according to reports.
Balyoz is an alleged military coup plot against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said to have been planned in 2003. According to allegations, the military planned drastic measures to foment unrest in the country in order to remove the AKP from power.
