ANKARA, Nov 2 (AFP) - Two former Turkish energy ministers appeared before a special court Tuesday to face corruption charges in a trial seen as a test of the government's determination to combat a widespread scourge in the country which is seeking to join the European Union.
Cumhur Ersumer and Zeki Cakan are among six ex-ministers which parliament decided should be tried by the Supreme Court -- the name under which the constitutional court judges top public officials -- since the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002.
The two men are accused of abusing their office, misusing their authority, intervening in state tenders and causing huge public losses during their tenure.
The defendants each face more than 10 years in prison if found guilty at the end of the trial, which is likely to take several months.
As Cakan entered the courthouse he denounced what he called a "political lynching" and said he welcomed the chance to respond to the charges, which he dismissed as baseless.
In Tuesday's hearing, followed by a throng of reporters, lawyers for Ersumer and Cakan presented to the 11-judge panel their arguments on what they saw as procedural mistakes in the trial.
The lawyers argued that the case against their clients should be thrown out on the grounds that the parliamentary decision to send them to court -- based on a report prepared by a parliamentary commission on the allegations -- was invalid because procedural rules were breached in the process.
They also argued that their clients were facing more accusations than those
originally detailed out in a parliamentary proposal, in violation of the law.
The defence team also said some of accusations directed against the ex-ministers were vague and asked the court to try the two men separately on the grounds that there was no direct link between them that called for a joint trial.
The country's top prosecutor, Nuri Ok, however, asked the court to reject most of the defence lawyers' demands, but he agreed with the defence argument that the two men were facing more changes than originally laid out.
He asked the court not to take into consideration 22 charges against the defendants during the trial.
After a two-hour break, the court's president Mustafa Bumin announced that the trial had been adjourned until November 25 for the judges to evaluate and make a decision on both the defence and the prosecution's demands.
Both Ersumer and Cakan were members of the Motherland Party, whose former leader Mesut Yilmaz, a three-time prime minister, has also been sent by Turkish lawmakers to trial on corruption charges, along with former economy minister Gunes Taner.
Cakan succeeded Ersumer -- a close aide of Yilmaz -- in 2001 when the latter resigned amid a corruption scandal at the ministry.
Apart from these four men, former deputy prime minister Husamettin Ozkan and former economy minister Recep Onal are also set to answer charges before the Supreme Court.
The trials came at the end of a far-reaching parliamentary inquiry looking at claims of allegedly large-scale fraud in tenders, sell-offs, banking reforms and energy projects over the past decade that have reportedly cost Turkey billions of dollars.
The AKP initiated an anti-fraud campaign in parliament following pre-election pledges to stamp out chronic corruption, seen by many as one of the core reasons for the economic woes plaguing the country.
The Supreme Court has tried 12 former ministers on different charges since 1928 and eight of them have been sentenced to either fines or prison terms.
11/02/2004 12:47 GMT - AFP