At CHP group meeting, Baykal criticizes Ergenekon indictment

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal yesterday criticized the Ergenekon indictment, some details of which were made public this week. At his party's group meeting, Baykal said that the indictment didn't targeted coup plotters but rather terrorists. People were misled about the indictment, he added, and so they expected to see a settling of accounts over Turkey's history of coups and the generals who staged them as well as a strengthening of Turkish democracy. Because of this illusion, he continued, people who believe in democracy, such as intellectuals and other sectors of society, had overlooked some mistakes of the prosecution and waited patiently, putting their trust in the prosecutors. "And in the end, what came out of this?" he asked. "Diaries and new interrogations to begin, based on these diaries. This case is over, and the indictment isn't a coup indictment." Referring to a late 2005 bombing in southeastern Turkey and the subsequent prosecution of two noncommissioned gendarmerie officers, he added, "What we went through during the Semdinli indictment is happening all over again."