The operations launched simultaneously yesterday in several locations came a little too early for those who have been following the developments. It was only a month ago, Jan. 20, that the Taraf daily had the scoop on Sledgehammer and its subplots, which encompass a period between late 2002 and the spring of 2003, focused on the 1st Army Headquarters in İstanbul. The stories were based on a 5,000-page file and related documents, heavy enough to fill a suitcase. About two weeks ago, Mehmet Baransu, one of the reporters who broke the news, handed over all the material -- the originals with signatures of the commanders, etc. -- to the İstanbul Prosecutor’s Office. Only days after, Ahmet Altan, the editor-in-chief of Taraf, was summoned to the Military Prosecutor’s Office to testify for an hour. The calculation was, given the “heavy content” of the material, that legal consequences -- house searches and arrests -- were to be expected in April at the earliest.The rapid reaction of counterterrorism teams yesterday means that a) the prosecutors already had strong enough evidence to move, b) there was growing fear that the suspects would destroy some of the evidence and c) there was increased concern of similar, clandestine activity, a threat to order.
Of all the moves yesterday, one stands out. Naturally, it is significant that Özden Örnek and İbrahim Fırtına were arrested. The explanation is, as we know from Taraf’s reporting, that the former, as the commander of the fleet, and the latter, as the commander of the War Academy, had signed some of the critical and controversial documents. It comes as no surprise that Çetin Doğan and Süha Tanyeri were also subjected to searches of their homes and a probable arrest later on. As the former is known for his leadership role, the latter emerged as the one from whose desktop the entire Sledgehammer plan, including the list of the “coup cabinet,” was “copied” and leaked to the press.
The surprise is the arrest of İlker Saygun, who at the time of “Sledgehammer” was a army corps commander (he would later be the deputy chief of the general staff and 1st Army commander before retiring, and his name is claimed to be among those who penned the so-called e-memo on April 27, 2007). It means that the prosecutors felt they had strong enough evidence that they did not need to call him for a simple interrogation (as they did with Fırtına and Örnek earlier).
Was Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ informed about yesterday’s operations? Given the “last minute” cancellation of his visit to Egypt, one would assume he was not. The top commander is in the midst of stormy waters and will have a tough time managing the crisis which has exposed and hit the powerful institution. It is an open question if and how the top echelons of the army will react to the enhanced operations against a high number of its staff. More than five of the arrested yesterday are colonels on active duty, and it adds to the sensitivity of the new phase. Başbuğ is aware of the arduous journey his faces until he retires in August: A recent “posting” of his recorded speech on the Internet has been interpreted as an attempt to compromise the general since it was understood that the “secret recording” was not (yet) made public. After Taraf’s revelations about Sledgehammer, Hilmi Özkök, former chief of general staff, had pointed at the commander of the land forces at the time, Aytaç Yalman, as the one “responsible.” But Yalman told the press that his superior during the controversial time was Başbuğ, who served as his immediate supervising officer during that same period.
In this web of contacts about who knows what and how much, the operations yesterday tell us that the İstanbul Prosecutor’s Office seems determined to follow the clues and documents. This means an institution in high tension and politics is kept on knife’s edge. With a pro-establishment, discreetly militarist media and a partisan high judiciary also in the picture, “normalization” in Turkey looks like more of an arduous task than before.
