Turkish police detained the head of a university and two former heads on Monday in connection with an alleged plot to overthrow the government, state-run Anatolian news agency said.

Nearly 150 people, including retired senior military officers, lawyers and academics, are on trial for their links to Ergenekon. Prosecutors say the group was planning a campaign of bombings and attacks to force the army to step in against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government.

Anatolian said Mehmet Haberal, head of Baskent University in Ankara, was detained at his home after police searched it. Police also arrested a former college head in the Black Sea city of Samsun and another in the eastern city of Malatya.

Police were searching the house of Mustafa Yurtkuran, acting chairman of a staunchly secularist group know as the Ataturk Thought Association and also former Rector of Uludag University. The group's offices across Turkey were being searched by police, Anatolian said.

Police, earlier in the day, began searching simultaneously houses and offices of several persons including Professor Turkan Saylan, chairperson of the Organization for Support for Contemporary Life (CYDD), in several provinces after the High Criminal Court in Istanbul ordered the detentions as well as the suspects' homes and workplaces upon a request by five prosecutors carrying out the investigation.

Police search at CYDD's branches in the provinces of Mersin, Trabzon, Antalya, Bursa, Sanliurfa and Diyarbakir is still continuing.

Meanwhile, a few staff of the private TV channel Kanal B were allowed to enter the building to continue broadcasting.

"Coup Probe"

The alleged criminal network that came to be known as "Ergenekon" was revealed after police seized 27 grenades, TNT explosives and fuses in a shanty house in Istanbul on June 12, 2007 and Istanbul Chief Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into weapons. Police waged operations in several provinces and detained a number of people, including retired senior army officers, journalists and businessmen, for their alleged involvement in the network.

Eighty-six people already are on trial in the probe for allegedly being part of the Ergenekon while trial of 56 others will begin in June. They are accused of planning assassinations and bombings to sow chaos and overthrow the ruling government.

The military has unseated four elected governments either in outright coups or by strong political pressure. It has denied any links to Ergenekon.



Agencies