Lieutenants Sinan Efe Noyan, Faruk Akın and Alperen Erdoğan were arrested yesterday, and civilian Levent Çakın was released pending trial.
The prosecutors accused the lieutenants of planning an assassination against two admirals, whose first names are Uğur and Metin. At the initial hearing at İstanbul's 11th High Criminal Court yesterday, each defendant was charged with “being a member of an armed organization,” and they were both sent to prison. Outside the courthouse, Mehmet Aytekin, the attorney for two of the defendants, said that the court passed the decision without the presence of the defendants' attorneys.
Aytekin claimed nobody tried to reach them, and apparently, the lieutenants refused to testify without the presence of their lawyers.
On the other hand, court officials said that since the attorneys of the lieutenants were not available when the court requested them to be present, the court asked the bar association to send lawyers to represent the lieutenants. However, the lawyers from the bar association were on strike, and the bar association could not send any lawyers to the courthouse.
The police conducted the investigation after receiving a tip from an anonymous caller and then carried out three simultaneous raids in İstanbul, İzmit and Gölcük, during which explosives, narcotics and maps connected to the assassination plots targeting a number of admirals were found. In addition to maps the police believe were created as part of a plot to assassinate admirals, police also found explosives as well as a small amount of marijuana and Captagon pills.
The Ergenekon trial, which started in July 2007 and where 88 suspects – including political party leaders, former army officers and university rectors – stand accused of membership in a clandestine organization charged with plotting to overthrow the government, continues.
