Monday, 13 April 2009
Professor Mehmet Haberal, rector of the Baskent University in Ankara, and Professor Fatih Hilmioglu, former rector of the Inonu University in Malatya, were detained under the "Ergenekon" probe.
Police, earlier in the day, began searching simultaneously houses and offices of several persons including Haberal, Hilmioglu and Professor Turkan Saylan, chairperson of the Organization for Support for Contemporary Life (CYDD), in several provinces after the High Criminal Court in Istanbul ordered the detentions as well as the suspects' homes and workplaces upon a request by five prosecutors carrying out the investigation.
Police search at CYDD's branches in the provinces of Mersin, Trabzon, Antalya, Bursa, Sanliurfa and Diyarbakir is still continuing.
Meanwhile, a few staff of the private TV channel Kanal B were allowed to enter the building to continue broadcasting.
The alleged criminal network that came to be known as "Ergenekon" was revealed after police seized 27 grenades, TNT explosives and fuses in a shanty house in Istanbul on June 12, 2007 and Istanbul Chief Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into weapons. Police waged operations in several provinces and detained a number of people, including retired senior army officers, journalists and businessmen, for their alleged involvement in the network.
Eighty-six people already are on trial in the probe for allegedly being part of the Ergenekon while trial of 56 others will begin in June. They are accused of planning assassinations and bombings to sow chaos and overthrow the government.
