The trial of 86 people belonging to the so-called Ergenekon group accused of conspiring to overthrow Turkey's moderately Islamist government continued on Thursday, after chaotic scenes at Tuesday's opening session due to the small size of the prison courtroom.
After Tuesday's mainly procedural session, the court in the Silviri prison complex just outside Istanbul is expected to hear more detailed defence from those on trial, a group which includes former military officers, a best-selling author and the leader of a small left-wing party.
Due to the small size of the courtroom the judges decided to first try the 46 suspects currently in prison. The other 40 suspects are free pending trial.
The defendants are charged with conspiring to organize a series of attacks to destabilize Turkey and creating the conditions that would allow a planned coup in 2009.
Prosecutors accuse the defendants of belonging to the Ergenekon group, named after a mythical homeland of ancestral Turks, and claim that the group is a terrorist organization that has had links to various murders in the past and had plans to carry out assassinations of political and social leaders.
It was through these assassinations and other types of destabilizing attacks that the group hoped to create the chaos necessary to allow the military to launch a coup in
2009 on the basis that it was bringing order back to society.
The trial is expected to shed light on shadowy relations between staunch secularists, who accuse the government of attempting to impose Sharia (Islamic) law on Turkey, and their supporters in the military and state institutions.
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