An İstanbul court yesterday overturned at least 30 requests for new judges in the Sledgehammer case, where many retired and active duty officers stand accused of having plotted to crash Turkish jets and bomb mosques in a bid to undermine the government and eventually stage a coup d'état.

Suspects' lawyers on Tuesday appealed arrest warrants issued by the İstanbul 10th High Criminal Court late last Friday for 102 of the suspects. At least 90 petitions against the warrants were filed, while at least 30 suspects requested that new judges be assigned to the Sledgehammer trial. None of the suspects have so far turned themselves in. Durmuş Türemen, a retired colonel and lawyer, warned that if the defendants who are now being sought failed to appear at the relevant courthouse and surrender, this would cause chaos. Sharing his comments on the defendants' refusal to turn themselves in despite the warrants, Türemen said the suspects should be brought to the prosecutors by police force. He said everyone had to comply with arrest warrants. “This is what the law orders,” he said, noting that there were no exceptions to that rule and that nobody was exempt from the law.Meanwhile, an interesting remark came from Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül, who said yesterday that an arrest warrant and a capture warrant are “two different things.” Gönül made his comment in response to a question on what he thought of Sledgehammer suspect Gen. Nejat Bek's participation, alongside Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, in a ceremony in Adana on Monday for four police officers killed by terrorists. The court has also issued a warrant for Bek.While petitions appealing the warrants were filed on Tuesday, both the tactic of the petitions and their text had been decided by the General Staff late Friday night, Turkish newspapers reported yesterday.According to reports that appeared in the Turkish press yesterday, Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ called the General Staff's Legal Undersecretary Gen. Hıfzı Çubuklu on Friday to lay out a strategy against the arrest warrants. A decision to appeal the arrest warrant was made at the meeting. Legal undersecretaries from the Air Forces, Land Forces and the Gendarmerie Command also joined the meeting. The petition text that came out of that meeting was relayed to suspects' lawyers for them to make the necessary changes and submit to the court.The Taraf daily reported yesterday that Metin Feyzioğlu, a candidate for president of the Ankara Bar Association as well as a professor at Ankara University's Faculty of Law, was also called to the Command Center to help develop a legal strategy. The report said three texts were prepared during the meeting including an appeal of the capture warrant; a request for a change of the judges assigned the case and an appeal of the arrest warrant.Another decision taken at the meeting was for Gen. Başbuğ to talk to politicians about lifting the arrest warrants. In fact, there was a meeting between Gen. Başbuğ and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday, which newspapers said came after the initial convention in which the generals laid out a legal strategy.Young officers uneasy about generals' planThe legal probe has various implications for the Supreme Military Council (YAŞ) that convenes in early August. As per law, the military cannot promote officers who are the subject of an investigation, but suspending their promotion also means freezing the possible promotion of officers of lower ranks who are waiting to be promoted. Speaking to the Yeni Şafak daily, retired military prosecutor Faik Tarımcıoğlu said the possibility of suspending the promotions of those who are being probed constituted a major problem for younger officers. He also said that Chief of General Staff Gen. Başbuğ had missed the chance to be etched in history as a democratic military chief by not expelling those officers alleged to have been involved in anti-democratic plans.Turgut Özbek, a retired military prosecutor, said the 25 active duty generals who are among the Sledgehammer suspects with warrants for their arrest could not possibly be promoted at this summer's YAŞ meeting, as per the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) Personnel Law. He said Article 65 of the law made it clear that individuals who are under arrest or who have been released pending an investigation or trial cannot be promoted in rank. “The law is very clear,” he said. He said YAŞ had the authority to prolong the four-year legal tenure of generals and admirals -- except in cases of exceeding the age limit for retirement -- by a year every year but noted that the trial was likely to go on for several years, saying it was unlikely that the TSK would try to prolong any of the terms of the high ranking officers implicated in the Sledgehammer plot. He said the law did not specifically ban prolonging their terms, but he added that doing this would be unethical.He also said he believed that Gen. Başbuğ was being misled by the consultants and legal advisors in the General Staff Headquarters.The Sledgehammer Security Operation Plan, the most recently exposed in a series of shadowy plots, is a Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) plan that aimed to create an atmosphere of chaos in the country through a series of acts of violence that would eventually lead to a military coup.Late Friday night prosecutors conducting the Sledgehammer investigation obtained a court warrant for the arrest of 102 retired and active duty military officers who are suspected of being part of the plot, including retired Gen. Çetin Doğan, the former 1st Army commander. The general is accused of having masterminded the Sledgehammer plot. 29 July 2010, ThursdayTODAY'S ZAMAN  İSTANBUL