Turk court quashes verdict in deadly 2006 attack on judge

Lawyer accused of killing one and injuring four linked to coup plotters

Supporters of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party demonstrate to call attention to the Ergenekon case in Ankara in this October 19 photo.

ANKARA (AFP) – Turkey’s appeals court yesterday quashed the verdict over a 2006 deadly attack on a top administrative tribunal which had been blamed on a radical Islamist, the Anatolia news agency reported.

It said the attack on the Council of State may be linked to an alleged ultra-nationalist plot to discredit and topple the Islamist-rooted government, in which the gunman is said to have posed as an Islamist militant.

The ruling said the case should be merged with the trial of dozens of suspects over the anti-government plot, which is under way in Istanbul, Anatolia reported.

The gunman, a 30-year-old lawyer who was jailed for life in February, had confessed to the attack on the Council of State, in which he killed a senior judge and wounded four others.

He said he acted out of anger over court rulings upholding a ban on the Islamic headscarf in public offices and universities. He also confessed to organizing three grenade attacks in Istanbul against the secularist newspaper Cumhuriyet several days before the court shooting.

Five other men were given prison sentences for helping him in the attacks and two suspects were acquitted.

The prosecutor investigating the alleged plot against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government argues that the gunman, Alparslan Arslan, posed as an Islamist radical but in fact acted on behalf of the plotters.

The raid on the court sparked accusations at the time that the Islamist-rooted government’s vocal opposition to the headscarf ban was emboldening extremists and triggered mass secularist demonstrations.

The indictment over the alleged coup plot says the suspects – described as members of the ultra-nationalist Ergenekon group – instigated violence and planned assassinations to foment political turmoil in Turkey and topple Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

They reportedly hoped that the chaos would prompt a military coup against the AKP, which hardcore secularists accuse of seeking to dismantle Turkey’s secular system and replace it with an Islamist regime. The group is also accused of planning to assassinate prominent people, among them Erdogan, former army chief Yasar Buyukanit, 2006 Nobel literature laureate Orhan Pamuk and popular Kurdish politician Osman Baydemir.

Among the 86 suspects who went on trial in October are retired army officers, leftist politicians, members of secularist associations, journalists, academics and underworld figures.