Turkish court jails Islamic cleric for life

Istanbul, Turkey - A Turkish court on Monday sentenced an Islamist cleric to life imprisonment on charges he plotted to kill members of the country's ruling elite by crashing an explosives-laden plane into a national monument.

Metin Kaplan, dubbed the "Caliph of Cologne," was accused of seeking the violent overthrow of Turkey's secular constitution with a 1998 plan to fly the aircraft into the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish republic, during a national day celebration by the military and political elite.

Kaplan was extradited from Germany last year after serving a four-year prison sentence for ordering the murder of a rival religious leader. He headed a Cologne-based group known as the Kalifatstaat, or Caliphate State, outlawed under anti-terrorism laws in 2001.

His lawyer Husnu Tuna said Kaplan would appeal the ruling.

"This ruling is not just. We believe such a decision was reached beforehand. We will take this to the appellate court," Tuna told reporters outside of the Istanbul court.

Kaplan, who denied charges of treason and terrorism, was also accused of planning an attack on a prominent Istanbul mosque to "fight to the death" with security forces.

Muslim Turkey strictly separates state and religion, and Ataturk's mausoleum in the capital Ankara is revered by Turks as a symbol of those secular values.

The German government only agreed to Kaplan's extradition after years of legal wrangling because Turkey abolished the death penalty as part of reforms to meet European Union membership criteria.