Turkish ex-army chief Ilker Basbug on Tuesday rejected terrorism charges against him and refused to mount a defence in his trial for seeking to overthrow the Islamist-rooted government, the Anatolia news agency said. “I am astounded at being accused of leading a terrorist organisation,” the retired general told a court in Silivri, outside Istanbul, where his trial opened Monday. “This accusation is not directed against me but against the armed forces,” he added. Basbug said the court did not have the jurisdiction to try him, and said he would not present a defence or answer any questions. “To try and accuse a head of the armed forces of crimes of this nature is the result of a comedy of incompetence,” the 68-year-old career soldier said in his first statement to the court. “The charge sheet has no credibility from my point of view.” Basbug went on trial Monday on charges of leading a terrorist group accused of plotting to overthrow the Islamist-rooted government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). Basbug, who was chief of staff from 2008 to 2010, has been in custody since January and risks life in prison if convicted in a case that has inflamed tensions between the government and the powerful military. “On my life I have never tolerated illegality. My loyalty to democracy is known,” Basbug, wearing a dark suit, told the court. “Those who accuse me, do they know that I ordered without hesitation an investigation if I noticed any offence” against the government, he said of his tenure as army chief. He also took issue with claiming he ran a “terrorist organisation” saying he had fought “relentlessly” against the Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a terror group by Turkey and much of the international community.
