Police detain chief suspect in Turkey coup case Bayloz

Turkish police on Sunday re-arrested the main suspect behind an alleged 2003 military coup plan, two days after a court issued a warrant, reports AFP.

Retired four-star general Cetin Dogan was escorted by plainclothes police from Istanbul airport as soon as he arrived from the southwestern holiday resort Bodrum, the CNN-Turk news channel said.

Dogan was among the 196 people - among them senior army commanders - indicted earlier this week on charges of conspiring to topple the Islamist-rooted government.

On Friday, an Istanbul court issued an arrest warrant for 102 of those suspects -- including Dogan -- and set the first hearing in the high-profile case for December 16.

The NTV news channel said Dogan would spend the night in police custody and face a court on Monday to be jailed pending trial.
The warrant also included five serving generals and two admirals as well a number of retired ones, among them the ex-chiefs of the navy and the air force, Ozden Ornek and Ibrahim Firtina.

Some 40 serving and retired soldiers, including Dogan, were initially arrested after the coup probe began in February, but they were all subsequently released amid accusations that prosecutors had issued arrest rulings liberally.

The indictment has singled out Dogan, the former commander of the First Army, as the mastermind behind the coup plan - called "Operation Sledgehammer" (Bayloz) - to oust the ruling Justice and Development Party, which has its roots in banned Islamist movement.

The charge sheet says the suspects planned to bomb mosques and provoke tensions with neighboring Greece with the aim to spark political unrest and shape public opinion in favor of a military coup, before seizing power.