ANKARA, October 9 (RAPSI) – The appeals commission of the Supreme Court of Turkey on Wednesday handed down sentences to the accused in the 2003 Operation Sledgehammer coup trial.

Operation Sledgehammer was a coup plan allegedly aimed at the pro-Islamic administration of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Former Air Force Commander İbrahim Fırtına and Navy Commander Ozden Ornek were sentenced to 20 years in prison. 36 former high ranking military officers were sentenced for 16 to 18 years in prison. 88 participants of the trial were acquitted.

The investigation in the Operation Sledgehammer began after the Taraf newspaper published a series of controversial articles in 2010. The publications claimed that the Turkish army, which participated in three coups since 1960, was planning a series of explosions in Istanbul’s mosques and the installment of martial law.

The accused military officers claimed that the scenario described in the paper was a hypothetical war games scenario, and had no bearing on reality.