[Hurriyet Daily News] Former Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug presented his defense at a second hearing before the Supreme Court of Appeals in the Ergenekon coup plot case on Oct. 7.
Former Chief of General Staff said a plot was laid against the Turkish Armed Forces.
Basbug was asked who was behind the "game" played against the Turkish Armed Forces and replied, "The George W. Bush administration has supported the game against the Turkish Armed Forces," adding that the Gulen movement was the main perpetrator of the violation of law via their cadre placed in the judiciary and police department.
With statements such as "What they have asked and we did not give?" and "We were cheated," the U.S. government clearly stated they had given support to the Gulen movement, Basbug also said.
He was targeted by the Gulen movement because of his statements against the group, Basbug said.
The Ergenekon coup plot trial, considered the most important legal battle in recent Turkish history, reached an end on Aug. 5, 2013, after Istanbul's 13th High Criminal Court handed down severe punishments.
The verdict trial, which decided the fate of 275 suspects at the end of a five-year process, resulted in hundreds of years of imprisonment in total and several aggravated life sentences for a series of the country's high-ranking army members, journalists and academics.
Suspects faced a series of charges from a combined mass of different cases, but with the overall focus around their implication in the Ergenekon network, which was ultimately acknowledged by the court as a terrorist organization that had attempted to overthrow the government.
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