The report confirms the findings of a previous TÜBİTAK report on the plan, which said the coup documents were drafted in 2003 and were not added to the military seminar documents later, as claimed by opponents of the Sledgehammer investigation. Sledgehammer is a suspected coup plot concocted in 2003 at a military gathering. According to the plan, the military was to systematically foment chaos in society through violent acts, among which were planned bomb attacks on the Fatih and Beyazıt mosques in İstanbul. The plot allegedly sought to undermine the government to lay the groundwork for a military takeover.
The new TÜBİTAK report was forwarded to prosecutors overseeing the Sledgehammer probe on June 17. According to the report, 19 CDs and DVDs on the coup plan were examined by a large group of council experts, who confirmed that the CDs and DVDs were prepared in 2003 and were not added to afterwards.
“It is possible to add information to a CD or DVD after it is originally made if it technically allows such an operation. But the CDs and DVDs [of the Sledgehammer plans] do not allow such an operation. … No finding was available as to an addition to the CDs and DVDs as well as a change on the final user, date and hour when the CDs and DVDs were prepared and when they were finally recorded,” the report read.
Similar findings in a previous TÜBİTAK report were challenged by the 1st Army Command’s Military Prosecutor’s Office. An expert at the office drafted his own report and denied the authenticity of the Sledgehammer report. The expert, Col. Yavuz Fildiş, said the military prosecutor’s office’s examination showed that there was strong evidence, in terms of military writing style and methods, that suggests the Sledgehammer plan and other alleged plans, titled Suga, Oraj, Çarşaf and Sakal, are not original.
The Sledgehammer plan is believed to have been authored by retired Gen. Çetin Doğan, who was arrested earlier this month on charges of membership in a terrorist organization. After the emergence of the plan, the general claimed that the coup plan was added to the military seminar documents by unidentified individuals after 2003 with the ulterior motive of discrediting the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in the eyes of the public.
