By Joe Parkinson & Ayla Albayrak, Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2013

ISTANBUL—A Turkish court sentenced a former military chief and 18 other people to life in prison on Monday, concluding a landmark case that has divided the nation and come to symbolize the conflict between the Islamist-rooted government and the secularist-dominated opposition.

Ilker Basbug, the 70-year-old head of Turkey's armed forces until 2010, was among those given a life sentence along with 13 other military officers, a soldier, a journalist, a lawyer, a politician and an ex-publisher for plotting to overthrow the government. Of the 275 defendants, all of whom said they were innocent, all but 17 were convicted.

Prosecutors argued that the defendants were members of a network of secularists, nationalists and military officials that plotted extrajudicial killings and bombings in a bid to trigger a military coup. The prosecutors said the group—allegedly code named "Ergenekon" after a mythical valley revered by nationalists—represented antidemocratic forces that the prime minister has fought to eradicate.

Government critics, including the main opposition Republican People's Party, have characterized the trial as a witch hunt against the secularists who dominated Turkish politics until Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan began his rule in 2003 [....]