Ruling creates twist

The Ergenekon prosecutor argued there were connections between Ergenekon suspects and Alparslan Arslan, who perpetuated the attack on the Council of State in 2006 and the bombings of daily Cumhuriyet’s office in Istanbul in the same year. After re-examining the Ergenekon documents, the Chief Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court of Appeals yesterday decided to annul the earlier verdicts on both cases and said it was necessary to combine them with the Ergenekon case. The court’s demand will be discussed by the local court, in which both these cases were heard and where verdicts were given.

The Ergenekon case started after the discovery of 27 hand grenades June 12, 2007, in a shanty house in Istanbul's Ümraniye district that belonged to a retired noncommissioned officer. The grenades were found to be the same type used in the attacks on Cumhuriyet daily's Istanbul offices in 2006. In the indictment, the Ergenekon prosecutor suggested Ergenekon suspects could be behind the attacks, which claimed the life of a top judge and caused anger against the government.