 |
‘Sledgehammer’ planned to use 200 policemen
The 5,000-page plan, which was first revealed by the Taraf daily in January, contained the names of about 200 senior policemen who were on active duty in cities including İstanbul, Kocaeli, Bursa, Balıkesir, Edirne, Tekirdağ and Kırklareli when the plans were made in 2003, the Milliyet daily has revealed.
The daily’s investigation shows that policemen were assigned code names and specific duties in the event of a military intervention. The Sledgehammer plan also classified the policemen into “the execution group,” “those which could be used in interrogations” and “possible administrators.” Some of the policemen named continue to hold important positions today.
According to the Sledgehammer documents, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) had a systematic plan to create chaos in society by bombing mosques and attacking popular museums with Molotov cocktails. The purpose of the attacks was to increase pressure on the government for failing to provide security to its citizens, eventually leading to a military coup.
The plan was drawn up in 2003 and discussed in a seminar held at the General Staff’s Selimiye barracks in March of that year. The General Staff has denied that the Sledgehammer plot was the subject of a seminar, saying it had no record of such an incident. It defended itself by claiming that the Sledgehammer plan was merely a war game.
As with 35 journalists whose names were on a previous revealed “to be arrested” list included in the Sledgehammer plan, the policemen were likely unaware that they were to be used in such an event. After the list of journalists was revealed, many of them filed a criminal complaint against individuals who prepared the plot.
There are also allegations that the policemen were selected from among a number of policemen who were either directly or indirectly contacted by the 1st Army Command, which prepared the Sledgehammer plan.
More than 50 retired and active duty military officers have been detained in the probe into Sledgehammer; some of them have been arrested while some have been released pending trial. Former 1st Army Commander Gen. Çetin Doğan, retired Gen. Engin Alan and retired Col. Altan Batıbay are among them.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
| ABDULLAH BOZKURT |  |
||
| Turkey and Mexico: Distant yet so close | |||
| BERİL DEDEOĞLU |  |
||
| Yemen and beyond | |||
| ARZU KAYA URANLI |  |
||
| On Memorial Day a few words to make your day memorable | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Are the Kurds mentally divorced from Turkey? | |||
| CUMALİ ÖNAL |  |
||
| Critical months for Egypt | |||
| DOĞU ERGİL |  |
||
| Qualities of power | |||
| YAVUZ BAYDAR |  |
||
| Qualm | |||
| GÖKHAN BACIK |  |
||
| Erdoğan, Gül and Davutoğlu: the inner bargain on Turkish foreign policy | |||
| JOOST LAGENDIJK |  |
||
| Europe can’t have it all. Or can it? | |||
| SEYFETTİN GÜRSEL |  |
||
| Poor-friendly economic growth and the AK Party | |||
| MELİH ARAT |  |
||
| Handmade | |||
| CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON |  |
||
| Missing women, missing opportunities | |||
| BERK ÇEKTİR |  |
||
| Changes to incentives for investment in Turkey | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
