Coup diaries included in new Ergenekon indictment

According to reports, allegations leveled last summer by the Nokta newsweekly that in 2004 now-retired Adm. Özden Örnek had confessed plans he and the four commanders at the time had to stage military coups to be named Ayışığı (Moonlight) and Sarıkız (Blonde Girl) will be brought to a court for the first time after the incident.

The İstanbul Prosecutor's Office on Tuesday submitted an additional indictment in the trial of Ergenekon, in which the alleged coup diaries are also being included as a plot of the organization.

Last year in April, weekly news magazine Nokta published excerpts from a diary it said belonged to former Navy Commander 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 newsweekly was shut down several weeks after a police raid on their office.

According to the Nokta report, Örnek, a disciplined journal writer since 1957, recorded every detail about the plan by Land Forces Commander Gen. Aytaç Yalman, Air Forces Commander Gen. İbrahim Fırtına and Gendarmerie Commander Gen. Şener Eruygur, who today heads the Atatürkist Thought Association (ADD), to stage a coup they termed "Blonde Girl" in 2004 when they were still in the military, but gave up due to the unwillingness of some higher-ranking officers, the US attitude at the time and the democratic stance of Hilmi Özkök, the then-chief of the Turkish General Staff. Örnek's journal suggested that Eruygur then planned a coup by himself that he called Moonlight.

Alleged JİTEM deaths also in indictment

The suspicious deaths of a colonel and a brigadier general in the 1990s raising hope that the activities of an illegal organization founded inside the gendarmerie, known as JİTEM, are reportedly also part of the new indictment.

The killings of military commanders Rıdvan Özden and Bahtiyar Aydın have been blamed on JİTEM, which is thought to be a crucial military instrument of Ergenekon, a clandestine terrorist organization with members from various state agencies, including the military, charged with plotting to overthrow the government.

The indictment, which has not yet been made public, reportedly talks about the two suspicious deaths. A witness -- whose identity was withheld by the indictment -- testified that Gen. Aydın was shot and killed by ex-Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members, who were actually informants and constituted a significant portion of JİTEM's recruits in the Southeast. Another witness, whose identity was also kept confidential for safety reasons, gave similar testimony about Özden.

Rıdvan Özden, a colonel who was declared dead following a clash with terrorists in 1995, was killed because he was preparing to expose files on assassinations and smuggling carried out by security forces, the family of an alleged close friend of Özden has claimed.

Özden was killed in 1995 in the city of Mardin. His wife, Tomris Özden, had expressed doubts at the time that her husband was killed in a clash with terrorists, as officials had claimed to be the case.

Birsen Aydın, the brother of Brig. Gen. Bahtiyar Aydın, who was killed in 1993 in a clash with terrorists, according to the military, has also maintained since Aydın's death that the killing was an inside job.

Efforts to merge Ergenekon-JİTEM cases

In January, İstanbul Prosecutor Zekeriya Öz, the chief prosecutor investigating the Ergenekon case, requested the files of a case being heard by a Diyarbakır court against 11 individuals who worked for JİTEM. The trial against these suspects over the deaths of three people killed by JİTEM in 1989 has been ongoing for the past 10 years. The prosecutor's move came after Tahir Elçi, a co-plaintiff attorney representing the victims' families, petitioned the İstanbul Prosecutor's Office to merge the two cases due to possible links between them.

In a statement he made at the time, Elçi said "If the two cases are merged, not only PKK informants, but also JİTEM generals will be tried. All the terrible crimes committed in the Southeast under JİTEM were activities of Ergenekon."

Trial background

Eighty-six suspects were indicted in a 2,455-page document made public last summer. The trial started in late October of last year, and if the new indictment is accepted by the 13th Higher Criminal Court, it will be merged with the original document. The initial investigation started on June 12, 2007, and the first indictment was submitted to a court in July 2008. The second indictment charges individuals detained or arrested in police raids conducted as part of the investigation held between July 10, 2008 and the start of this year.

In the second indictment -- a 1,909-page document -- 56 individuals are indicted, 21 of whom are suspects in custody, while 35 were released pending trial.