Pasts of detained commanders give clues to coup involvement

The track records of the generals hint at their alleged involvement in attempts to illegally overthrow the democratically elected Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government. Retired Air Forces Commander Gen. İbrahim Fırtına, who was interrogated in January by prosecutors conducting the investigation into Ergenekon, was among those detained yesterday.

Former Naval Forces Commander Adm. Özden Örnek, who wrote detailed journals between 2000 and 2004 on some of the force commanders’ coup plans, was also detained in yesterday’s operations. The commanders were interrogated yesterday by the prosecutors conducting the Ergenekon probe.

The detainees are being accused of having participated in devising the Sledgehammer and Cage plans, two military plots developed for the eventual purpose of overthrowing the government through a military intervention. Retired Gen. Engin Alan, also detained yesterday in Ankara over alleged links to the Sledgehammer plan, last served as the General Staff’s special forces commander. He directed the operation to capture outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1999 in cooperation with the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and special forces agents known as the Burgundy Berets. He also directed the Yarasa (Bat) operation in which the PKK’s second-in-command, Şemdin Sakık, was captured and brought to Turkey. Fifteen years ago, he also served as the military attaché in Baku, where he was implicated in a coup attempt against the Azerbaijani government. He is also mentioned as a “trusted partner” in a document that was part of the Cage plan found on the computer of retired Col. Levent Bektaş.

Çetin Doğan, who was detained and whose house was also searched yesterday as part of the investigation into the Sledgehammer plan, was commander of the 1st Army in 2003, the year when the Sledgehammer coup plan, on which his signature appears, was devised. In January he confirmed that a recording from a military seminar in which the Sledgehammer plot was allegedly discussed featured his voice. In the recording, the retired general speaks of domestic threats and giving an ultimatum to Parliament and the government. According to reports, the recording was from the closing delivered at the end of a conference held on March 5-7, 2003 at the Selimiye barracks in İstanbul. The Sledgehammer plan included bombing a mosque during the busy Friday prayer hour in order to create chaos in the country.

Retired Gen. Suha Tanyeri is remembered for his participation in a controversial meeting of the neoconservative and pro-Bush administration US think tank the Hudson Institute in 2007. In the meeting, participants had discussed the outcomes of possible scenarios in Turkey, including increased terrorist attacks killing 50 people in İstanbul and the assassination of the former head of the Constitutional Court, Tülay Tuğcu, by a suicide bomber. Sources confirmed that Gen. Tanyeri and military attaché Brig. Gen. Bertan Nogaylaroğlu participated in the meeting. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had referred to the doomsday scenarios as “ridiculous nonsense.” Tanyeri was the director of the Turkish General Staff’s Strategic Research and Study Center (SAREM) at the time.

The Ergenekon prosecutors had earlier included in the indictment a diary belonging to retired Naval Forces Commander Adm. Örnek, who was also detained yesterday. The diary also talked about coup plans. The diary was first exposed by the now-closed Nokta magazine in 2007. Örnek’s diary revealed that former Land Forces Commander Gen. Aytaç Yalman, former Air Forces Commander Gen. Fırtına and former Gendarmerie Commander Gen. Şener Eruygur were making preparations to stage military coups in 2004 to be named “Ayışığı” (Moonlight) and “Sarıkız” (Blonde Girl).

Yalman, Örnek and Fırtına all testified to Ergenekon prosecutors on Dec. 5, 2009. According to reports, Fırtına was asked to give the names of the individuals involved in the preparation of the Ayışığı coup plot. The prosecutors also asked him if there were any “replacements” for the generals mentioned in Örnek’s diaries, including Fırtına. About 50 people were detained in yesterday’s operation, a majority of them being retired and active duty military officers.