Turkey ex-army chief arrested for alleged bid

yahoo.com

Turkey's former army chief Ilker Basbug was arrested Friday for an alleged bid to topple the Islamist-rooted government in the latest confrontation likely to inflame tensions with the powerful military.

"The 26th chief of staff of the Turkish republic has unfortunately been placed in preventive detention for setting up and leading a terrorist group and of attempting to overthrow the government," Ilkay Sezer, a lawyer for Basbug, was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.

He is the first such high-ranking military commander to be held as a suspect since another former chief of staff in the 1960s, according to the Turkish press.

However, dozens of active and retired military officers, academics, journalists and lawyers have been detained in recent years in probes into alleged plots against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.