Turkey frees colonel involved in anti-government plot

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A senior military officer who was arrested on suspicion of involvement in an alleged army plan to discredit the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party was released on Friday, Turkish media said.

State-run Anatolian news agency said he was freed after his lawyer raised objections to his arrest. No details were immediately available on the circumstances of his release. It was not immediately possible to contact the prosecutor's office.

The investigation has stoked tensions between Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government and the secularist military in the predominantly Muslim, European Union candidate country.

Colonel Dursun Cicek was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of "membership of a terrorist group".

According to media reports, Cicek is regarded as the author of the suspected plan targeting the government and a powerful Islamic movement. He has denied the charge.

Cicek had been detained previously over suspected links to a separate plot to overthrow the government by a shadowy, nationalist group known as "Ergenekon". A trial on that alleged coup plot is under way.

Army suspicions that Erdogan's AK Party has a hidden Islamist agenda and aims to undermine the country's staunch secular order have repeatedly triggered political strains in recent years, unsettling financial markets.

The AK Party denies having such an agenda.

A plot to discredit the government was first unveiled in June by liberal newspaper Taraf, which said it had obtained a photocopy of a document drafted by Cicek detailing the plan.