330 Turkish Military Officers Convicted of Plotting Coup

Leaders receive 20-year prison sentences

Turkey's state television TRT says a court has convicted 330 military officers — including the former air force and navy chiefs — of plotting to overthrow Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-based government in 2003.

It says a panel of three judges at the court in the outskirts of Istanbul initially sentenced former air force chief Ibrahim Firtina, former navy chief Ozden Ornek and former army commander Cetin Dogan to life imprisonment but later reduced the sentence to a 20-year jail term. The three were accused of masterminding the plot.