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3 Serving Generals Suspended On Sedition Charges In Turkey

11/25/2010

(RTTNews) - The Turkish government on Thursday suspended three senior Army officials for their alleged involvement in an earlier plot to oust the Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led civilian government, reports said.

This is for the first time in modern Turkish history that a civilian administration has taken action against military top brass by invoking provisions of a law promulgated over half-a -century ago.

Maj Gen Halil Helvacioglu,Maj Gen Gurbuz Kaya and Rear Adm Abdullah Gavremoglu who have been served suspension orders are among the nearly 200 army personnel facing charges of sedition.

Details of the planned coup codenamed "Sledgehammer."were revealed after the local Taraf newspaper was tipped off by sources within the Turkish Army. Later it handed over documents running to 5000 pages plus several CDs detailing the operation to the prosecutor's office.

Sledgehammer consisted of four "action plans", including a plot to bomb two major Istanbul mosques, Beyazit and Fatih, during Friday prayers. It also called for a secret discussion of the plans by top Turkish military commanders following which 160 officers attended the seminar convened in March 2003 in the Selimiye army barracks in Istanbul.