FACT: The government is not and cannot be a party in the Ergenekon trial. The case is being investigated by independent prosecutors while judges are hearing all evidence submitted to the court as well as listening to oral arguments raised by defense lawyers and prosecutors. Prosecutors act on behalf of the Turkish public, and judges render decisions in the name of the people. Moreover, the executive branch cannot by law interfere in independent investigations and court trials.

It is not unexpected for a member of the Ergenekon terrorist network to oppose the government in Turkey; after all, Ergenekon was allegedly trying to topple the government. From the evidence submitted to the court, we also know that these people are also staunchly anti-West, labeling the United States imperialist and the European Union and NATO Trojan horses vis-a-vis Turkey.

For example, in the third Ergenekon indictment, prosecutors uncovered a plot to assassinate a NATO commander serving in İzmir. A CD seized from Ergenekon suspect Hayati Özcan describes in detail how Spanish commander Eduardo Zamarripa Martinez, who worked as an aide to the NATO air base commander in İzmir, would be silenced in 2006. The CD also contains blueprints of the NATO headquarters there, a description of what should be done if problems surface and how a building nearby would be leased as well as many more detailed plans concerning the alleged plot to kill Martinez.

2. FICTION: Illegal wiretapping is the basis of allegations leveled against Ergenekon suspects and should therefore be dismissed.

FACT: Prosecutors are confident that all authorizations to wiretap individuals issued to police during the course of the investigation were obtained from the court and comply with Turkish law, which requires a judge's signature based on compelling evidence submitted by the prosecutor. Had any illegal wiretapping happened as alleged, the court would simply throw it out, and defense lawyers would immediately make use of the weakness in the indictment. We have not seen that happen yet, suggesting that the prosecutors' case is solid.

Data released by the Turkish Ministry of Justice has revealed that the amount of wiretapping of public officials and citizens suspected of criminal activity in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom is far greater than that in Turkey. In fact, the grounds for wiretapping were reduced through a change in the law in 2004 during the Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) tenure. Nearly 70,000 people are wiretapped in Turkey every year.

A court order is required for wiretapping. The wiretapping records are destroyed if no crime is detected. If a chief public prosecutor's office decides that there was no need for the wiretap, it has to inform the person in question that they were wiretapped and tell them the reason, duration and result of the wiretapping in written form within 15 days. Consequently, those who believe that they have been wiretapped without reason can sue for compensation.

In contrast, the French government does not have to inform people about the details of the wiretapping. In Germany, the government has to inform a person that they have been wiretapped after the investigation has been completed; however, there are many exceptions to this rule. The Italian government does not have to reveal the details of the wiretapping.

There has been a serious problem of illegal wiretapping in Turkey, but not in the context of the Ergenekon case. This wiretapping is not sanctioned by a judge but employed by gangs and illegal networks to extort money or intimidate people. For example, in April, Turkey's largest GSM firm, Turkcell, faced serious problems after allegations were raised that a group of employees from within the company formed a wiretapping gang and tapped lines for $30,000 apiece for anyone willing to pay. According to reports, the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has been collecting evidence of the alleged wiretapping for a long time.

3. FICTION: The Ergenekon case was built on “secret witness” testimony and, as such, violates the rule of law. The charges are bogus.

FACT: It is true that Ergenekon investigators used testimony from “secret witnesses” to build the case. Nearly 20 secret witnesses have provided valuable information to the prosecution. But the case is not based solely on secret testimony. There is an overwhelming body of other evidence that supports the case.

Second, secret witnesses are also being questioned openly by defense lawyers in cross-examinations in court. Their voices are masked and their faces hidden to protect their identities. Just because prosecutors have taken depositions from secret witness does not mean they have been accepted at face value by the court.

The testimony of secret witnesses has been taken in compliance with legislation passed in 2008, the Witness Protection Law. The law was part of Turkey's European Union harmonization efforts regarding the effective combating of terrorism and organized crime. Under the Witness Protection Law, those who testify as witnesses in trials for crimes that call for a sentence from 10 years to life and trials involving organized crime or terrorism can benefit from protective measures.

The reasoning was that, especially in the case of organized crime, witnesses are not able to talk because of fears for their security. The law has proven a useful tool for prosecutors in cracking major international crime rings involved in human and drug trafficking using Turkey as a transit country en route to Western markets. It also offers an opportunity for prosecutors to go after coup plotters who had used killings, threats of bodily violence and bribery to foment chaos that would make the country ripe for a coup. Without the protection clause offered by the secret witness law, it would have been difficult to find whistleblowers to expose these vicious organized terrorism and crime networks.

Both the US and EU member states have similar laws. Unless the testimony of secret witnesses has been verified, courts cannot rule to convict suspects implicated in the crime.

4. FICTION: People may consider toppling the government as part of their right to “free speech.” Unless a coup actually takes place, it is wrong to prosecute those involved in its planning because no crime has been committed.

FACT: Many jurists disagree with this assertion, saying that planning a coup is no different than attempting to kill a man and, as such, it constitutes a crime punishable by law. An amendment to the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) in 2005, in line with EU demands, listed a number of activities that are regarded as “threats to the constitutional order of the country,” criminalizing antidemocratic actions against the government. The amendment garnered the support of the Supreme Court of Appeals, the Council of State and even the Republican People's Party (CHP), which is better known for its opposition to almost every action taken by the AK Party government.

Once a member of the military tries to stage a coup d'état, it would be very hard to prevent it. Once the coup is staged, the names behind it form their own version of the law. They prepare their own constitution and laws. They even include articles in their constitution that prevent them from standing trial on coup charges. This is exactly what happened in the 1980 military coup. While drafting a new constitution after the coup, generals put in Article 15, which bans any legal action against them. This is believed to be the biggest obstacle to putting coup perpetrators on trial.

Turkey has experienced four coups and numerous attempts to stage coups in the past. With the revised TCK, measures have been put in place to prevent any attempt to stage a coup. According to Article 309 of the code, individuals who are charged with attempting to destroy the constitutional order of the country are to be sentenced to life imprisonment. In addition, Article 311 outlaws attempts to prevent Parliament from functioning, even partially, while Article 312 prohibits similar attempts against the government. Article 313 criminalizes urging the public to stage an armed revolt against the government.

Moreover, there has been a growing body of evidence examined by the courts that shows people involved with the Ergenekon terrorist network actually committed murders to achieve their aims. The case therefore looks to be more than an attempt or a simple freedom of speech issue. For example, last year, the 9th Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals made a decision to approve a request to merge the Council of State attack case with the Ergenekon trial in İstanbul.

In 2006, one judge was killed and four people injured in a shooting that took place at the Council of State in Ankara. Based on the initial statements of suspects, it looked as if the attackers had chosen their target to protest an anti-headscarf decision by the high court. However, as the Ergenekon investigation unfolded, the case appeared to be linked to the organization, which aimed to use the attack to incite chaos inside the country for the ultimate purpose of triggering a coup.

5. FICTION: The case pits the military against the government and represents a power struggle between Islamists and secularists.

FACT: The military is not a monolithic structure, and the government is not party to the independent investigation and trial process. Most of the evidence in the Ergenekon trial was unearthed thanks to whistleblowers within the Turkish military who firmly believed what coup planners were doing was simply wrong as regards the rule of law. We now know from court proceedings that some generals in the military had planned at least four coups, but thanks to the firm stances of the sitting chiefs of General Staff against the generals, they failed to topple the government.

Those coup plans have been proven by various investigations and former Chief of General Staff Gen. Hilmi Özkök himself admitted that the generals who are now detained were in fact involved in such planning. Furthermore, former Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt admitted in a TV interview that he is one of the victims of the Ergenekon criminal network.

Describing the case as a fight between Islamists and secularists is misleading. The case is a struggle for the supremacy of democracy, human rights and the rule of law over a shadowy terror network that has long enjoyed protection from prosecution.

6. FICTION: The prosecutors have submitted doctored evidence to support their case.

FACT: That is hardly the case as the court would not just accept evidence at face value as submitted by the prosecutors. They ask for expert opinions and have reliable institutions ascertain their accuracy. In fact, that is exactly what happened with the document that was leaked to the small liberal Taraf daily in June 2009 that showed the outlines of detailed military plans to incriminate the faith-based Gülen civic movement by planting weapons and ammunition in schools and student dormitories run by the group. The plotters also aimed to weaken the AK Party government by through a smear campaign.

This document was authenticated by three forensic authorities: forensic science experts at the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), the Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) and the Gendarmerie General Command's Criminal Investigation Department. Even the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) finally admitted that the document is in fact authentic and was prepared by a colonel.

7. FICTION: The coup plans were just scenarios and simulations run by military officers as part of a drill. No one would write a 5,000-page memo just to stage a coup.

FACT: This argument was made in reference to the Sledgehammer plan targeting the government. The plot was allegedly the outline of a very comprehensive and well thought out plan to create chaos by killing or injuring a number of bureaucrats and journalists, shooting down a Turkish jet to blame the Greeks and bombing mosques to create chaos in the country. A document exposed by the Hurriyet daily in April indicated that current Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ was aware that a 2003 military seminar in which participants discussed the Sledgehammer plan had violated military regulations. The document features the signature of Chief of General Staff Gen. Başbuğ, who was the Land Forces commander at the time. In the document, Gen. Başbuğ expresses reservations and criticism that retired Gen. Çetin Doğan, the former head of the 1st Army, went beyond the “official and legal framework” when presiding over the seminar.

However, the seminar was supposed to be an exercise during which members of the military were to prepare a “scenario” of an external threat against Turkey and the TSK’s response in the face of such a threat. The scenario was supposed to involve fictitious individuals and institutions rather than real ones.

Expert witnesses who are members of the military still on active duty, in their reports for an investigation conducted by a military court, reported that the Sledgehammer coup plan documents indicate it was in fact an actual coup plan. Prosecutors detained generals and questioned them about their involvement in the coup plan.

8. FICTION: There is no hard evidence supporting the charges that this group is a terror network. It is all based on witness testimony and intercepted telephone conversations.

FACT: Police have found weapon caches belonging to the Ergenekon networks, including anti-tank weapons, C-4 explosives, hundreds of hand grenades, rocket launchers, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), AK-47s and many more weapons, enough to wipe out a medium-sized town. Furthermore, a military court sentenced Ergenekon suspect Lt. Col. Mustafa Dönmez to four years in prison for his connections to the weapons and decided to discharge him from the army. The Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE), a state-owned corporation that manufactures arms and weapons, confirmed that based on serial numbers and delivery records, most of these weapons belonged to the Turkish military. The evidence in that regard has been submitted to the court.

For example, a list of weapons that were going to be used to carry out a devious plan called the Cage plan by some members of the Naval Forces Command to intimidate the country's non-Muslim population by assassinating some prominent figures has been made public. The long list of weapons the Cage plot planned to use include light anti-tank (LAW) weapons, various explosives, two tons of ammonium nitrate, five Glock handguns, four Uzi guns, four long-range assault rifles, two Accuracy International sniper rifles and 50 other guns.

9. FICTION: This is the first time in Turkey that coup plotters are being tried.

FACT: This is partly true and partly false. Turkey tried the suspected instigators of a coup for the first time in its history in 1958 after an army officer informed the prime minister of the time, Adnan Menderes, of coup preparations. It was Maj. Samet Kuşçu who raised the alarm about a junta group that was planning to stage a military coup.

Nine high-ranking officers were arrested and tried by a military court. However, the verdict was disappointing. The nine were cleared of the charges against them while the informer, Kuşçu, was discharged from the military and sentenced to two years in prison for slander. But two years later in May 1960, when the military staged a coup, the nine officers who had been tried and released were one of the cells in the junta. The junta executed Menderes, Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan after the coup.

Ergenekon is the first time that military officers including force generals, not the whistleblowers, are actually being tried in an open and transparent manner.

10. FICTION: The US and the European Union have misgivings about the Ergenekon case. It is another sign that the government is using the case to silence the opposition and that they do not want to be part of a domestic dispute.

FACT: The misgivings expressed by the EU and the US about the case at the outset quickly disappeared after a large cache of weapons was seized and authenticated evidence piled up to indicate plotters have in fact adopted anti-EU and anti-American positions.

“This case is an opportunity for Turkey to strengthen confidence in the proper functioning of its democratic institutions and the rule of law” was the 2009 European Commission report's overall approach to the Ergenekon investigation. “The commission is following the ‘Ergenekon' trial with the utmost attention. Beyond referring to it in detail in the progress report of 2009, the commission has stated on various occasions that the ‘Ergenekon' investigation is a test for a well-functioning democracy in Turkey,” Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle said in a written statement on March 5, to a question posed by a European deputy.

The US has taken a more reserved approach and refrained from making direct comments on the ongoing legal case, saying the issue is a domestic one. Yet officials in Washington revealed that the US is closely watching the case and is paying special attention to what is going on in Turkey. The Ergenekon terror network was mentioned in the annual “Country Reports on Terrorism” issued by the State Department last year.

Philip Gordon, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, told reporters in Ankara in November 2009 that the Obama administration is “very interested in things that dominate the headlines in Turkey.” Though he declined to comment on the specifics of the case, Gordon said, “We watch it closely because it has an impact on one of our key partners.”

After sweeping arrests in February during which 49 military officers were detained, US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley told reporters that the US does not have any specific concern over the detention of top commanders as part of investigations into alleged coup plots.

Commenting on the Ergenekon case, Shari Villarosa, deputy coordinator for regional affairs in the State Department's Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, told reporters in March that the US “would support transparent investigations and due process” in the case. While she described the case as an internal Turkish issue, Villarosa disclosed that the US Embassy in Ankara is following the case more intensively than the office in Washington.

11. FICTION: Defendants' rights have been violated, and suspects are treated poorly during the course of the investigation.

FACT: In fact from what we have seen so far, we can conclude that the opposite is happening in the case and generals and high-profile civilians charged with membership in the Ergenekon terror network are receiving special treatment. Senior retired generals who were arrested in February as part of an investigation into the Sledgehammer coup plot, for example, were given red carpet treatment. Instead of spending the night in a detention cell in line with common practice, they spent their first night in custody in the police chief's offices at the İstanbul Police Department.

While the jail capacity in Turkey is below the number of incarcerated people and inmates are forced to live in overcrowded prisons, the government has expanded the facilities at Silivri Prison, where the trials are also being conducted, to accommodate Ergenekon suspects. The Ergenekon suspects arrested pending trial were treated much better and housed in much nicer facilities than thousands of others who are forced to live in overcrowded jails.

According to Ministry of Justice statistics as of 2009, the capacity of Turkish prisons was around 93,000, but the system housed 110,000 people, prompting some prisons to replace their beds with three-level bunk beds in order to deal with the space problem. Even with this solution, however, officials say some prisoners still have to share a bed. In compliance with the law, all Ergenekon suspects were taken to the Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) for a physical examination before the interrogation. Many suspects who had been referred to the Gülhane Military Academy of Medicine (GATA) have been hospitalized for various disorders, giving the impression that they used the military hospital as a platform to exploit loopholes in the system in order to avoid trial. These suspects include retired generals Şener Eruygur, Hurşit Tolon, Cetin Doğan and Levent Ersöz; retired colonels Arif Doğan and Atilla Uygur; and Başkent University Rector Mehmet Haberal. More high-ranking military officers are seeking a transfer to the military hospital. None of these suspects have returned to prison after being hospitalized.

12. FICTION: The government is using the case to pressure journalists and force them to censor critical coverage of the government.

FACT: The government was the target of Ergenekon suspects who had conspired to topple it in the first place. It has nothing to gain but lots to lose if the case is censored. In fact the pressure on journalists is coming from judicial circles who want the information suppressed. The practice led to complaints lodged by media outlets, which said the wave of cases filed against them is making their jobs as advocates of the public interest very difficult. Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin provided details on a large number of cases that have been filed against reporters covering Ergenekon, particularly on charges of violating the confidentiality of the investigation and the judicial process. “From the start of the Ergenekon process until Oct. 21, 2009, the highest numbers of legal actions taken against journalists were related to Turkish Penal Code [TCK] Article 285, which criminalizes endangering the confidentiality of an investigation. A total of 4,139 processes were launched in this period; 1,739 of those were dismissed, 574 are still being investigated, 561 were declared outside the scope of jurisdiction of the authority applied to and charges were filed against 1,265. So far, 17 journalists have been convicted, 122 were acquitted, 317 of these cases were dismissed while 203 of those filed were ruled out of the court's jurisdiction,” he said. He added that his ministry was focusing on finding the optimum balance between press freedom and regulations that protect the confidentiality of judicial processes and the privacy of suspects.

As a result of two prominent cases -- Şamil Tayyar, who was sentenced to a 20-month suspended prison term for writing on the Ergenekon case, and Mehmet Baransu, whose trial is still pending -- the European Union in January called on Turkish authorities to urgently amend the country's legal framework to protect the freedom of the press. Then-Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn's spokesperson underlined that the media investigation was part of the necessary democratic debate and should be strongly defended.

13. FICTION: The public does not believe in the Ergenekon case.

FACT: Public surveys conducted thus far show Turks are increasingly inclined to believe in the case as the details begin to emerge. For example, a survey done in January by the Ankara-based MetroPOLL Strategic and Social Research Center showed that more than 55 percent of respondents said they believe there is a group within the TSK that seeks to stage a coup. According to a poll in July 2009, slightly more than 48 percent of respondents said they believed there was a pro-coup wing within the TSK. Support is expected to rise as the details of the case become public with the trials.

14. FICTION: The Ergenekon case will lead to civilian dictatorship in Turkey

FACT: Despite efforts under way to prove otherwise, many in Turkey believe today that the talk of clashes between state institutions reflects the ongoing struggle for the supremacy of democratically elected institutions over established ones, specifically the military and the judiciary.

They claim that for a long time, Parliament and the government, both elected by the people directly, have been relegated to a lesser role in the governance of the country and that their powers were usurped and often curtailed by the outspoken, politically motivated generals and by judicial activism. It was not long ago, however, when a military commander completely ignored a call to testify in front of a parliamentary investigation committee. A strong warning of the chief of General Staff could easily have ousted the ruling government from power. Today, however, we witness the justice system vigorously inspecting a military office that has been identified as the most secret center of operations within the heart of the army.

15. FICTION: Dissident journalists are being discredited with accusations of Ergenekon membership.

FACT: Prosecutors included a handful of journalists in the indictment, citing a mountain of evidence tying them to a major Ergenekon network plot. They are not being accused of writing critical articles against the government. The charges have nothing to do with their profession. They were accused of “inciting the people to armed revolt against the government” as members of Ergenekon. This was the main reason the Solidarity with Arrested Journalists Platform (TGDP) excluded journalists Mustafa Balbay and Tuncay Özkan from a list of journalists under arrest to whom greeting cards were sent on the occasion of Eid al-Adha in 2009. Cumhuriyet daily columnist Balbay and TV presenter and commentator Özkan were arrested in 2009 over suspected links to Ergenekon. Concerning the exclusion of Balbay and Özkan from the list, Necati Abay, the head of the TGDP and its spokesman, said the two journalists had been excluded because they did not meet their criteria. “When we examined Balbay and Özkan's dossiers, we saw that Balbay was not in jail because of his articles and Özkan was not in jail because of his TV programs. They are being tried on charges of membership in the Ergenekon terrorist organization. So the charges against them do not fall within the scope of freedom of speech,” explained Abay.

16. FICTION: Members of minority communities do not consider the plans to kill non-Muslim minority leaders included in alleged coup plots a credible threat.

FACT: The Ergenekon investigation has confirmed suspicions and concerns long held by non-Muslim religious communities. Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of approximately 300 million Orthodox Christians around the world, said in 2009 that dark forces planned to use minorities to overthrow the government as exposed in the investigation into Ergenekon.

Bartholomew was referring to recent revelations regarding a subversive plan called the Cage Operation Action Plan, allegedly drafted by a group within the Naval Forces Command in order to intimidate the country’s non-Muslim population by assassinating some of their prominent figures and thus undermine the power of the ruling party. Incidents in İstanbul’s Kurtuluş neighborhood and Adalar district suggest that the alleged plan had already been put into operation.

Investigators also found that Fatma Cengiz, who is currently a suspect in the Ergenekon case, had collected information regarding the Armenian community in Turkey. A file was discovered containing a list of subscribers of the bilingual Armenian weekly Agos, whose editor-in-chief, Hrant Dink, was shot dead in 2007 by an ultranationalist Turkish adolescent. In addition, there were lists of names and members of Armenian foundations and churches, which were classified as “active” or not, as well as the balance sheets of Agos. Cengiz also allegedly gave information to İbrahim Şahin, a former deputy head of the National Police Department’s Special Operations Unit, also a suspect in the Ergenekon case, to establish “S-1 and S-2 teams” to assassinate intellectual leaders in society. A detailed report recently prepared by the İstanbul Police Department suggests that a number of planned attacks against civilians mentioned in the Cage Operation Action Plan were devised by Ergenekon. That included the killings of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, Catholic priest Father Andrea Santoro and three Christians in Malatya, aimed at creating chaos in the country to prepare the ground for a coup d’état.

In November 2009 police also discovered a list of 10 prominent representatives of minority groups to be assassinated on the computer of a retired naval Maj. Levent Bektaş, who was arrested as part of a probe into weapons discovered in April 2009 during excavations launched as part of the Ergenekon investigation.

17. FICTION: Prosecutors bury evidence within indictments that are thousands of pages long.

FACT: Though the Ergenekon indictments set records for their length, this is partly due to the way the justice system is set up in Turkey. Prosecutors are obliged to put evidentiary details, albeit in brief, in the indictment for each and every charge to make the case in court. In a case like Ergenekon, which is a very complex web of dirty connections, it is simply not easy to create a brief indictment in compliance with the current practice in Turkey.

All the relevant evidence, such as the results of a search conducted in the office of a suspect, for example, would be included in the evidentiary files, which are separate from the indictment and would supplement the case.

Here is a list of indictments related to the Ergenekon investigation so far:

• The first Ergenekon indictment is 2,455 pages with 441 evidentiary dossiers
• The second Ergenekon indictment is 1,909 pages with 250 evidentiary dossiers
• The third indictment is 1,454 pages with 185 evidentiary dossiers
• The Sledgehammer plan indictment is 65 pages
• The Cage plan indictment is 65 pages with 6 evidentiary dossiers
• The Poyrazköy indictment is 300 pages with 24 evidentiary dossiers
• The indictment on a plot to assassinate admirals is 166 pages with 16 evidentiary dossiers
• The Erzincan indictment is 62 pages with 16 evidentiary dossiers

We have seen other legal cases in the past that had unusually long indictments filed against defendants. After a 29-year trial, a Turkish court finally reached a verdict in 2009 in the trial of 1,243 suspects charged with membership in the outlawed Revolutionary Left (Dev-Sol), a group designated as terrorist organization by Turkey and the United States. The indictment was 1,319 pages long. In another case launched against the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in the ‘80s, the court saw a 945-page indictment. Van 100. Yıl University Rector Yücel Aşkın was charged with corruption in a 232-page indictment.

18. FICTION: The Ergenekon case was launched by the government because a closure case was initiated against the ruling party.

FACT: The timing of the two events simply render this claim baseless and out of touch with the chronology. First of all, the Ergenekon investigation was started in June 2007, when 27 hand grenades, explosives and detonators were found in a shanty house belonging to a retired noncommissioned officer, who is now a suspect in the case, in Istanbul’s Ümraniye district. The grenades were found to be the same batch as the ones used in attacks on the Cumhuriyet daily’s İstanbul office in 2006. The closure case against AK Party was started on March 14, 2008, nine months after the investigation was launched.

19. FICTION: Wiretaps and Ergenekon evidence were leaked to pro-AK Party media outlets.

FACT: Most of the coup allegations and evidence that was leaked to the media was published by small but independent liberal daily Taraf, which started publishing in November 2007. Taraf is known for bashing the government as well as the military and is staunchly liberal when it comes to advocating democratic and human rights. It has won a reputation for breaking stories that no other paper dares touch in Turkey. The paper, edited by Ahmet Altan, has also dared to recognize the Armenian genocide and confronted the military and the state for extrajudicial killings in the predominantly Kurdish Southeast. A columnist at the German Der Spiegel called Taraf Turkey’s most courageous paper in 2008. The Hürriyet daily, owned by media mogul Aydin Doğan, who was involved in a tax feud with the government, exposed a document in April 2010 that Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ was aware that a 2003 military seminar in which participants discussed the Sledgehammer coup plan violated military regulations. The document features the signature of Başbuğ, who was the land forces commander at the time.

The diaries of Mustafa Balbay, a man accused of “inciting the people to armed revolt against the government” as a suspected member of Ergenekon, were published first on the T24 news portal, then owned by the Doğan Media Group, archenemy of the government. The documents recovered from the hard disk of Balbay’s computer chronicled his meetings with retired military generals, journalists and other Ergenekon suspects to organize a military takeover in great detail. Prosecutors have demanded the editor-in-chief of the T24 news portal, Doğan Akın, be sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for publishing the chronicles.

In fact, even before the Ergenekon investigation started, in April 2007, an independent weekly news magazine called Nokta, hardly a pro-AK Party publication, published excerpts from a journal it said belonged to former Naval Forces Commander Adm. Özden Örnek, which contained details of coup attempts dating back to 2004. An investigation was launched following the allegation -- not into Örnek and his coup plans, but into Nokta Editor-in-Chief Alper Görmüş. The magazine was shut down several weeks after a police raid on their office, but Örnek’s journal was included in the second indictment in the Ergenekon trial in 2009 after a technical examination of the excerpts published by Nokta confirmed that they were authentic.

20. FICTION: The Ergenekon trials are taking too long.

FACT: While Ergenekon trials are lengthy because of the scope of the investigation and the number of people charged with criminal activity, in comparison with other cases in Turkey, it is actually progressing relatively quickly. Many jurists will concede the fact that the trial has covered in a year what other cases would take 10 years to cover. The İstanbul 13th High Criminal Court is holding sessions at a courtroom inside Silivri Prison every working day except Wednesday, which is visiting day. The sessions are adjourned if the evidence submitted by the prosecutors needs verification, which is standard operating procedure in Turkish courts.

In contrast, however, in other cases going on in Turkey, there is at least a month’s break between hearings on average, sometimes with only two hearings per year. The slow-moving and cumbersome justice system in Turkey is a constant source of criticism and urgently needs structural reform. If you look at the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), you will see that Turkey has been condemned by the court on many occasions for prolonged detention pending trial. According to ECtHR statistics, 62 percent of Turkey’s violations concerned Article 6 which is the right to a fair trial, mostly caused by lengthy proceedings. This article is often raised as the reason for rulings against Turkey. Data for 2009 show that the court found Turkey guilty of violating the principle of a fair trial in 126 cases out of a total of 356. Moreover, the fact that indictments must be read aloud in the courtroom by prosecutors at the request of defendants slows down court proceedings significantly. For example, it took the prosecutors 49 hours over the course of 12 hearings to complete the reading of two Ergenekon indictments.

21. FICTION: Long detention periods for Ergenekon suspects before conviction are a unique violation of due process and human rights.

FACT: Be that as it may, this is a widespread and deeply rooted problem in the Turkish justice system that is not unique to Ergenekon suspects. Article 100 of the Code on Criminal Procedure (CMK) allows prosecutors to ask for an arrest warrant from the court until the proceedings are finalized. There are currently 118,929 people in prison in Turkey, 60,598 of whom have not yet been sentenced, according to the Justice Ministry’s statistics. The situation is even worse in juvenile prisons, where there are currently 2,789 inmates. Less than 10 percent are serving prison sentences, the rest have simply been arrested and are awaiting trial. Jurists attribute this to the shortage of qualified individuals to fill judges and prosecutors’ posts across the country. Judges are simply overwhelmed by their case loads, and they simply defer the cases, adding to the length of a suspects detention. In comparison to other suspects who are either waiting for the date of their trials to be set or waiting for the proceedings to finish, Ergenekon suspects have received preferential treatment and their cases are moving at a much faster pace.

22. FICTION: The Fethullah Gülen movement, which is a fundamentalist religious organization seeking to establish a theocratic government in Turkey, is behind the Ergenekon terror trial. Police, judges and prosecutors sympathetic to Gülen are driving the case to discredit the military and secular establishment.

FACT: First of all, Fethullah Gülen is a well-known moderate preacher who has never advocated violence and radical movements in his long career. On many occasions, he voiced his opposition to extremist movements and advocated the rule of law and democracy.

A court case investigating accusations and claims against him ended with acquittal on all charges, and this acquittal was upheld in the appellate courts as well. In its reasoned decision in 2006, the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court resolved: “There is no evidence proving that Gülen aimed at changing the constitutional system or resorted to force and violence. On the contrary, he was threatened by fundamentalist terrorist organizations for his friendly attitudes toward the state.”

This reasoned decision suggests the claims that Fethullah Gülen and associated institutions were aiming to change the constitutional system were not substantiated

Secondly, labeling the security forces and members of the judiciary as Gülen proxies is a great insult to the courageous work these people are doing on a daily basis, risking their lives and reputations.

Thirdly, the struggle in Turkey is not between so-called Islamists and secularists but between those who want more democracy, transparency, the rule of law and openness in the government and those who want to keep privileges and powers bestowed upon them, not by the people, but the military Constitution of 1982. For example, Ergenekon suspects are known to have lived their lives with impunity, and for the first time, the legal system is holding them responsible for the crimes they have committed.

ABDULLAH BOZKURT

TODAY’S ZAMAN – APRIL 21, 2010