Turkey charges 4 after assassination plot claims

ANKARA, June 4 (Reuters) A Turkish court has charged four men, including three soldiers, with conspiring to destroy national unity and with illegal possession of explosives, the state Anatolian news agency said today.

Some Turkish newspapers have alleged that the men, detained in a police raid on a house in Ankara last week, were planning to assassinate Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and other senior officials, though police have dismissed these claims.

Those arrested include one man with the rank of captain, two non-commissioned officers and a businessman. The court allowed several civilians detained in the raid to go free. The four insist that they are innocent, Anatolian said.

Police have confirmed they seized guns in the raid. Media say they also found explosives, a time bomb, sticks of dynamite, hand grenades and sketches of the route used by Erdogan to travel to his home, triggering the assassination rumours.

The arrests come amid increased political tensions in Turkey following the slaying of a top secularist judge in a crowded Ankara court by an alleged Islamist gunman in mid-May.

Erdogan, who has Islamist roots, has hinted at the possible involvement in that shooting of hardline nationalist elements in Turkey's security forces who oppose his government's efforts to ease curbs on religious symbols such as the Muslim headscarf.

Turkish newspapers say the men arrested in the Ankara raid are members of an ultra-nationalist gang called ''Atabeys' Guerrilla Army''.

Police say they have no evidence suggesting any link between this group and the attack on the courthouse.

The slaying of the judge triggered the biggest secularist rallies seen in Turkey for more than a decade. The head of the General Staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, annoyed Erdogan by urging secularists to keep up their protests over the incident.

Secularists, who dominate the powerful armed forces and judiciary, fear Erdogan is trying to undermine Turkey's strict separation of politics and religion. Erdogan, a pious Muslim whose wife wears the headscarf, denies any such plan.

REUTERS SK BD1810