TURKEY:A THIRTEEN-MONTH investigation into an ultra-secularist gang suspected of trying to destabilise Turkey took a step forward yesterday when prosecutors indicted 86 people on terrorism charges.
"The indictment covers crimes such as forming an armed terror group . . . and attempting to overthrow the government by force," Istanbul chief prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin told reporters yesterday.
A court has 15 days to decide whether to open a criminal case, and the details of the 2,450-page indictment remain hazy.
From what Mr Engin said, however, it is clear that the suspects are linked to the 2006 murder of a High Court judge which catalysed secularist opposition to Turkey's Islamic-rooted government.
The murder was originally blamed on Islamists.
The prosecutor also hinted that the massive anti-government demonstrations of March 2007 form part of the indictment.
The marches were organised by a secular lobbying group led by a former general who was arrested in connection with the gang a fortnight ago.
With Turkey's government facing closure for "anti-secular activities", secularists have long insisted the so-called "Ergenekon" investigations are a government-sponsored bid to discredit its political rivals.
They reacted to the indictments with mockery.
"So there was no coup attempt, only incitement to rebellion," said secular opposition MP Mustafa Ozyurek.
"The mountain has given birth to a mouse."
His remarks were cavalier, given the seriousness of the charges and the fact that two of three Turkish military coups followed what many see as state-instigated civil unrest. But he has a point.
For weeks, Turkey's media has been predicting the indictment would centre on two thwarted coup attempts in 2003 and 2004. It is now clear it does not.
Believed to have led the coup attempts, two senior generals arrested on July 1st will be dealt with in an additional indictment, the prosecutor said yesterday. It remains to be seen whether they will be charged for the coup attempts or in relation with the 2006 murders.
For Murat Yetkin, Ankara bureau chief for the daily Radikal, the future of the Ergenekon trial "depends on a thorough investigation" of a diary allegedly written by a former admiral which described the coup plots in detail.
Last week, a liberal-minded former chief-of-staff who blocked coup plans in 2004 expressed a willingness to give evidence in court.
"Pressure on the military prosecutor to start an investigation is slowly increasing," says Yektin.