The former chief of Turkey’s military and several other top generals, opposition politicians, and journalists have been sentenced to life in prison for an alleged coup plot.  The verdicts and sentences have many secularists in Turkey accusing the government of a creeping Islamist bent.

People disgusted with the verdicts fought with police outside the courthouse outside of Istanbul, and police responded by firing teargas into the crowd.  The protesters say the trial was a way for the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to eliminate opposition to his Islamist AK Party and stifle Turkey’s official secularist identity. 

Retired Army chief Ilker Basbug was the highest profile of the 275 defendants, which included other military officers, politicians, academics and journalists.   Prosecutors accused them of being part of an ultra-nationalist group named “Ergenekon”, which is the name of a mythic valley in Central Asia where the Turkic peoples originated.  The alleged plot was to stage assassinations and bomb blasts, none of which actually happened.

The case has been clouded by waves of mass arrests, allegations of doctored documents, dates that do not fit the evidence, and witnesses who were never called to testify.  Secular journalist Mustafa Balbay was held for years before getting a trial, and he was sentenced to 34 years in jail on alleged terrorism charges.