86 Charged Over 'coup Plot' in Turkey

The fight for control of Turkey's fragile political system intensified today when 86 hardline secularists were indicted on terrorism charges for allegedly plotting a violent coup against the Islamic-leaning government.

At least one retired army general as well as journalists, academics, lawyers and businessmen were accused of forming, helping or belonging to a "terror organization" aiming to forcibly overthrow the Justice and Development party (AKP) government after prosecutors published a long-awaited indictment on the alleged plot, known as Ergenekon.

The 2,455-page indictment was the result of a probe which began last June after grenades and explosives were found in a house in a poor area of Istanbul. It accused plotters of possessing arms and explosives, obtaining classified military documents and fomenting military disobedience as they sought to create a climate of instability that would prompt the army to unseat the elected government.

The investigation has already resulted in around 60 arrests but today's accusations threatened to further widen Turkey's religious-secular divide at a time when the AKP is fighting a separate legal attempt to close it for allegedly seeking to turn the country into an Islamic state.

An Istanbul court will decide over the next fortnight whether to press charges over the Ergenekon indictment just as the constitutional court, Turkey's highest legal forum, prepares to rule on an application by the chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, to close the AKP for anti-secularism. Yalcinkaya is also seeking to ban 71 of the party's leading figures, including the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from politics for five years. The constitutional court is expected to deliver a verdict within three weeks.

The two cases represent a battle for Turkey's soul, with the country's old guard - primarily the army and judiciary - suspecting the AKP of ambitions to dismantle the secular system established during Ataturk's time. The party denies the allegations and insists it is a force for democratic reform and modernization.

The army - traditionally seen as the guardian of secularism - has denied any links to Ergenekon, despite several ex-army officers having been implicated. Some critics have dismissed the probe as an AKP witch-hunt against its opponents in revenge for the closure case.

That suspicion was strengthened two weeks ago when Ergenekon investigators arrested 21 people, including two retired army generals and the head of Ankara's chamber of commerce, just hours before Yalcinkaya presented his oral arguments for closure to the constitutional court. Prosecutors say they are preparing a separate indictment for those arrests.