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Baku-APA.  The 19 people, including prominent journalists, lawyers, retired military officers, a convicted gang leader and the killer of a top court judge, were among hundreds convicted in the "Ergenekon" case, which lay at the heart of Erdogan's drive to break the political power of Turkey's military, APA reports quoting Reuters. Cleric Fethullah Gulen is widely believed to have helped Erdogan by using a network of supporters in the judiciary and police to drive the Ergenekon trial forward. But the two men have since fallen out and the government now suggests the defendants may have been unjustly treated.

The latest releases underscore how radically the Erdogan-Gulen feud has altered Turkey's political landscape. In emotional comments on emerging from almost six years in jail, journalist Tuncay Ozkan said: "Turkey is today in a very dramatic situation, resembling a country on the edge of a cliff. We cannot leave it in the hands of thieves and murderers." Retired General Ilker Basbug, the former chief of Turkey's armed forces, spoke with similar bitterness about his incarceration when he was released on Friday.

Murat Yetkin, columnist for Hurriyet daily, saw the release as symptomatic of a new political climate stirred by conflict between Erdogan and Gulen. "This new atmosphere seems like it will have further effects on political life as Turkey heads for critical local elections on March 30," he wrote. Erdogan's quarrel with Gulen now poses one of the biggest challenges to his 11-year rule after a series of audio recordings anonymously posted on the Internet purportedly revealing corruption and other malpractices in the government. Erdogan has placed the blame for the wiretaps on Gulen and his followers, whom he accuses of building a "parallel state" - an ironic echo of Turkey's "deep state" comprising staunchly secular, nationalist army officers and security personnel at the center of the Ergenekon allegations.

Gulen denies involvement in the wiretaps.

Erdogan says the recordings are "fabricated" and part of a plot to sully his ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party and to undermine his government before the local elections and a presidential poll scheduled for August 10. The government's response, transferring thousands of police officers and seeking to tighten its grip on the courts, has brought sharp criticism from the European Union, which Turkey has been seeking to join for decades, and rattled investors, helping send the lira to record lows.

"ERGENEKON"

In Monday's Ergenekon ruling, the Istanbul court said the convicts should be released because parliament recently cut the maximum detention period before conviction to five years. They have already spent a longer period of time in detention. The reduction in detention limits was part of legislation abolishing special courts used to try those involved in conspiracy plots such as Ergenekon. Among others the Istanbul court ordered to be freed on Monday was lawyer Alparslan Arslan, jailed for life after killing a judge and wounding four others in an attack in 2006. He had also been charged with involvement in the Ergenekon plot. The other lawyer freed was Kemal Kerincsiz, an ultra-nationalist best known for his efforts to bring charges against Nobel laureate novelist Orhan Pamuk and other writers for insulting "Turkishness".

Among those released later in the day was Dogu Perincek, a leftist politician heading Turkey's Worker's Party. He was handed an aggravated life sentence in August as part of the Ergenekon trials. The abolition of the special courts, driven by Erdogan's desire to purge Turkey's judiciary of Gulen sympathizers, has also led to the release of prisoners involved in other cases. A defendant in the trial over the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was freed last Thursday. At the weekend another court released five defendants held over the killing of three Christians, whose throats were slit in a publishing house in the southeastern city of Malatya in 2007.

Their release has sparked anxiety among members of Turkey's small Christian minority.

"Releasing some (defendants) ... may be justified since holding people in detention for five years is, of course, unjustified," said Yavuz Baydar, a columnist at the English-language daily Today's Zaman. "But the core matter is that after Erdogan's desperate gamble for survival, by abusing the outdated judicial system's weaknesses ... we now enter a very delicate phase ... with, possibly, gruesome consequences."

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Baku-APA. The Istanbul 21th High Criminal Court ordered the release of three prominent Ergenkon convicts, journalist Tuncay Özkan, alleged gang leader Sedat Peker, retired Col. Levent GöktaÅŸ on March 10, hurriyetdailynews.com.

Hours later, retired Col. Dursun Çiçek, lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz, and former special operations officer Ä°brahim Åžahin were also released by a separate court. Lawyer Alparslan Aslan, identified during the Ergenekon trial as the assailant in the Turkish Council of State attack in 2006 that killed a judge, was also released.

Çiçek, whose conviction in the Balyoz (Sledgehammer) trial was upheld after an appeal, will not be freed, while Peker’s release from prison is also uncertain as he is also serving a previous sentence.

In his first remarks after being freed, Özkan, one of the most high-profile figures of the case, slammed the court that dealt with the case. “I’m asking, what is my crime? Because the prosecutor said during the trial that I was the one who knew the best what my crime is,” he said.

Earlier, the Istanbul 13th High Criminal Court, a former specially authorized court, ruled that the continued detention of some Ergenekon convicts while the appeal process was continuing was in line with Turkish legislation.

The convicts included retired Brig. Gen. Veli Küçük, considered one of the main suspects in the case, Professor Yalçın Küçük and former Workers’ Party (Ä°P) leader DoÄŸu Perinçek.

The specially authorized courts were recently abolished by a new law approved by the Parliament.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party leader Kemal KılıçdaroÄŸlu expressed his satisfaction after Özkan’s release, adding that he expected all convicted in the case the be released as well.

The releases were made possible with the change in the country’s anti-terrorism laws, which reduced the maximum pre-trial detention period from 10 years to five years.

With removal of the specially authorized courts, the lawyers of the Ergenekon coup plot case applied to the local court for release of the convicts on the ground that they had been under arrest for over five years.

The lawyers applied to the Istanbul 21th High Criminal Court for the releases, instead of the Istanbul 13th High Criminal Court, after Parliament recently abolished the special authorized courts.

The Istanbul 13th High Criminal Court, which handled the Ergenekon trial, rejected this decision, saying Parliament did not have the authority to abolish the special courts and adding that an application to the Constitutional Court had been filed for the annulation of the legal arrangement. It also claimed, as the court that dealt with the case, that it still maintained authority on deciding about the detentions of the convicts.

Courts in spat over authority

Meanwhile, the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) slammed the Istanbul 13th Criminal Court for “extorting authority.”

“I don’t think a court that has been abolished has the authority to make a ruling. The court can from now on decide if it wants to transfer the files at hand, it can prepare the detailed reasoning of a verdict given, but it cannot rule any longer,” chairman of the first chamber of the HSYK, Ä°brahim Okur, told Anadolu Agency.

Okur also said the Constitutional Court would likely rule on non-jurisdiction, as the law on special courts does not affect any ongoing trial dealt with by the Istanbul 13th Criminal Court. He also stressed that Article 142 of the Constitution gave the necessary authority to Parliament to legislate regarding the establishment of courts.

Justice Minister Bekir BozdaÄŸ said it was the court’s decision to release suspects under arrest over five years with the recent amendment, and the decision can be regarded legal.

“But there are releases after the convictions. The maximum period of detention is calculated as the period between the date of arrest and date of conviction. The Constitutional Court has such decisions. I don’t know if the court has rejected [releases] on this ground. We have to see the justification for the rejection,” BozdaÄŸ said.

The development comes days after former Chief of General Staff retired Gen. Ä°lker BaÅŸbuÄŸ was released upon a ruling from the Constitutional Court that his imprisonment was a “rights violation,” on the grounds that the detailed reasoning regarding his conviction was not issued until seven months after the verdict.

BaÅŸbuÄŸ, convicted to life imprisonment, said after the release that he expected all officers convicted in the case to be released on the same grounds. “My release is just a start … If [other convicts are not released] it will not have any significance whatsoever,” he said.

The Istanbul High Criminal Court in Silivri, which reviewed the recent release demands, is the court that dealt with the Ergenekon trial and was in charge of issuing the detailed reasoning.

The Constitutional Court said in its ruling on an individual application from BaÅŸbuÄŸ that, due to the delay in the release of the reasoning, his conviction could not be taken to the Supreme Court of Appeals.

Tuncay Özkan, who founded the broadcaster Kanaltürk in 2004 and directed it until a few months prior his arrest, was accused of “leading a terrorist organization” and  received an aggravated life sentence of an additional 16 years.

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