Balyoz Verdicts Put Turkey’s Democracy to Test – Again …
The Supreme Court of Appeals confirmed that the military actually planned to carry a military coup, but it failed to convince the general public that the country’s democracy benefited from this trial.
On Wednesday, Oct. 9, the Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling confirming that some Turkish military officers had planned a coup to bring down the Islamist-based Justice and Development Party (AKP) soon after it came to power in November 2002.
The evidence of this coup plot — which did not go beyond the planning state and apparently was hatched at a March 5-7, 2003, military seminar — was delivered in a suitcase to the daily newspaper Taraf (which means “one taking sides”). Taraf’s staffers were known to be at war with the military’s role in politics, considering it the major stumbling block to democratization of the country. The suitcase contained numerous related and unrelated materials to the coup planning, but three CDs found in that suitcase formed the backbone of the prosecution’s case.
Taraf voluntarily turned over that suitcase in full to the state authorities, but started publishing what it had received from the anonymous source on Jan. 20, 2010. To this day the identity of the source who delivered the evidence to the paper remains unknown, even to the journalist who broke the story. The contents of the suitcase led to the end of the military’s role in civilian politics, a road paved by the historic trial that began on Dec.16, 2010.
With the code name Balyoz, or Sledgehammer, the scenario of the coup plot was simply horrifying. From the moment the allegations became public, the Turkish military worked in full cooperation with the state prosecutor’s office. However, the Turkish General Staff disputed in January 2013 reports in several pro-government media outlets claiming that the original documents of all evidence regarding the coup plot were found in the General Staff archives. The military stated flatly that it had no evidence to verify any of the contents of the three CDs that formed the basis of the coup plot.
