ANKARA, Turkey — A Turkish court on Friday convicted 326 military officers, including the former air force and navy chiefs, of plotting to overthrow the nation's Islamic-based government in 2003, in a case that has helped curtail the military's hold on political power.
A panel of three judges initially sentenced former air force chief Ibrahim Firtina, former navy chief Ozden Ornek, and former army commander Cetin Dogan to life imprisonment but later reduced the sentence to a 20-year prison term because the plot had been unsuccessful. The three were accused of coordinating the plot.
The court also convicted 323 other active or retired officers — including a former general elected to Parliament a year ago — of involvement in the conspiracy, sentencing some to as much as 18 years in prison. Thirty-six were acquitted, while the case against three other defendants was postponed. The officers are all expected to appeal the verdicts.
The trial of the high-ranking officers — inconceivable in Turkey a decade ago — has helped to tip the balance of power in the country in favor of civilian authorities.
Turkey's generals have staged three coups since the 1960s and forced an Islamist government to quit in 1997.
But the current government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has grown ever more confident with each of its three electoral successes since 2002, and has been limiting the powers of the armed forces, which see themselves as the guardians of Turkey's secular traditions.
The trial, which began in December 2010 in a courthouse outside Instanbul, was hailed by Erdogan's government.
But its secular critics denounced it as a ploy to intimidate opponents.
ASSOCIATED PRESS