Turkish journalist arrested over evidence in Balyoz case

Journalist Mehmet Baransu was arrested on March 2 after being detained by anti-terror police in Istanbul in an operation over the CDs that were used as evidence in the Balyoz (Sledgehammer) coup plot case.

Baransu is accused of "forming a criminal organization," as well as procuring, publicizing and then destroying "documents related to the state's interests at home and abroad."

Police detained Baransu late on March 1 after searching his home for almost 10 hours, seizing a number of documents.

Baransu, a reporter for daily Taraf, broke the story of the Sledgehammer coup plot case by delivering a whole suitcase of documents on the allegations to the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office in January 2010. The suitcase included CDs, tapes, printed documents and handwritten notes as evidence for the coup case.

Sledgehammer is an alleged military coup plot against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) drafted in 2003. The military is alleged to have planned drastic measures to foment unrest in the country in order to remove the AKP from power.

Those measures included bombing two major mosques in Istanbul, an assault on a military museum by people disguised as religious extremists and the raising of tension with Greece through an attack on a Turkish plane and blaming the incident on the Aegean neighbor.

An Istanbul court had sentenced 331 of the 365 suspects to prison terms on Sept. 21, 2012, while 34 suspects were acquitted. Three retired generals were convicted to life on charges of "attempting to overthrow the government by force," but the terms were later reduced to 20 years because of the "incomplete attempt at staging a coup," the court said.

Turkey's Constitutional Court delivered a...