Ankara,May 31: A powerful Turkish general has been jailed pending trial over suspected involvement in a coup attempt to topple Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government in 2003.
An Istanbul court ordered General Bilgin Balanli be sent to jail on Monday pending trial on the recommendation of a prosecutor who questioned him for three hours earlier in the day, Reuters reported.
Balanli, the commander of Turkey’s military academies, is the highest-ranking serving officer charged with connection to the conspiracy dubbed “Operation Sledgehammer.”
The court released five other serving generals, two colonels, and an admiral who had been summoned for questioning on Friday following the discovery of documents at a retired colonel’s house.
At least 200 serving and retired military officers have been arrested in connection with the coup plot. Most of the defendants are held in prison near Istanbul.
The case is expected to create more tension in the already strained relationship between Turkey’s influential secularist military and Erdogan’s administration ahead of the country’s June 12 general election.
Erdogan, whose ruling Justice and Development Party is expected to win a third successive term in office, plans to introduce a new constitution to replace the one drafted in 1982 under military influence following a coup two years earlier.
The Turkish military, which has been the self-appointed guardian of secularism in the country since the founding of the republic in 1923 and was widely regarded as an important element of the deep state, has overthrown four governments since 1960.
——–Agencies