Turkish Court Merges Judge Killing, Coup Plot Case

A court sentenced lawyer Alparslan Arslan to life in prison in February for the 2006 killing of a judge at the Council of State.

Turkey's top appeals court has ordered that a trial over the killing of a top judge be merged with the trial of a right-wing group charged with plotting a coup, state-run Anatolian news agency reported.

The ruling added weight to the trial of 86 people, including retired army officers, politicians and lawyers, suspected of belonging to a shadowy organisation called Ergenekon over the coup plot.

A court sentenced lawyer Alparslan Arslan to life in prison in February for the 2006 killing of a judge at the Council of State, the top administrative court, in a case that increased tension between the government and the secular establishment.

The killing of the judge was a central element of the indictment of the coup plot trial and the latest court ruling added to the case against the defendants.

Anatolian said the appeals court had on Tuesday overturned the verdict reached on the killing and on a related bomb attack on the secularist Cumhuriyet newspaper, and ordered the cases be merged with the coup plot trial.

"It is necessary to combine these cases in the face of assertions of legal and material links between this case and the Ergenekon case," Anatolian reported the court as saying.

Court officials were not immediately available to comment on the ruling, which was widely reported in Turkish media.

Arslan was one of eight people charged over the judge's killing and the attack on Cumhuriyet.

The defendants in the coup plot case are accused of planning assassinations and bombings to sow chaos and force the military to step in.

Hearings are being held daily in the Ergenekon case, which is expected to take months to complete.

Some government opponents see the coup plot case as revenge for court moves earlier this year to outlaw the ruling AK Party. The party, which has roots in political Islam, has denied any link.

The lawyer convicted of killing the judge had said previously he acted in protest against a ban on the Muslim headscarf in schools and universities.