Ankara began a "clean hands"

Almost

over a single day goes by without Turkey that television can broadcast a special bulletin on the latest developments in the Ergenekon case, the network accused of plotting violent actions to overthrow the Islamic government Conservative.

Sunday, the eleventh round of arrests led to the indictment of ten police officers, members of a special unit, and seven soldiers. Three weeks ago already, 33 others were arrested, including retired generals and Ibrahim Sahin, a former police chief condemned in the political-mafia scandal Susurluk, in the late 1990s. Based on a sketch found in his home, a cache discovered in the wake in a wood near Ankara, which contained rocket launchers and machine-guns and grenades also helped revive the investigation. According to media reports, these arrests have helped the net to thwart the assassination of the representative of the Armenian community of the city of Sivas, in Anatolia.

While 86 people - the retired military officers, criminal , journalists, lawyers - are already on trial for belonging to the network alleged coup since October, the increase in arrests in consolidating the positions of both critics as supporters of this investigation. The nationalist opposition, the Republican People's Party (CHP), has again accused the Party of Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power the opportunity to settle accounts with his opponents accusing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, "manipulation" and conduct "a Peronist dictatorship.

Mysterious character

In an attempt to back the political pressure, President of the Republic, Abdullah Gl, attended last week judicial, legislative and executive at Cankaya Palace. At the end of lunch, a presidential communiqu stressed the need for "the supremacy of the law", creating "a climate of confidence". The conduct of the investigation has been repeatedly criticized the first indictment would include gaps, journalists are regularly warned in advance searches ...

And sometimes, the Ergenekon case takes a bizarre twist. As with the interview of Tuncay Guney, a Turkish rabbi exile in Canada, which was broadcast on public television last Wednesday. Mi-mi-suspect witness, this mysterious character, described as a colleague from MIT, the Turkish intelligence service, accused many personalities to be part of the terrorist cell.

Nevertheless, the majority of Turks, more than 60%, according to a poll released Monday by the liberal daily Milliyet, believes in the existence of Ergenekon, although a quarter of respondents felt the same time as the involvement of some people is to intimidate the opinion. And for all those who complain for years that what we call here the "deep state", a structure nestled within the state with ramifications mafia and accused of dozens of killings since the 1970, the dismantling of Ergenekon finally kick start a "clean hands" in Turkey.

ahead of the army

"Such a criminal network of horizontal and vertical extensions, because without economic and military support behind an organization can not commit such crimes "says Ergin Cinmen, one of the lawyers for the family of Hrant Dink, the Armenian journalist shot dead in 2007. In the trial of his suspected murderers, the civil party also claims that his murder is on file Ergenekon. With dozens of arrests made this month, the network structure is presumed more distinctive. Many suspects were stationed in South-Eastern provinces of Kurdish majority, where the JITEM, a clandestine cell of the police, is accused of having committed hundreds of murders at the height of the civil war in the 1990s.

Finally, the military has so far not publicly opposed the arrests of officers in active, sometimes very high places. The latter could not be done without the green light from the army, believe experts. And the Chief of Staff, General Başbuğ and Prime Minister Erdogan agreed to henceforth meet once a week.