Monday January 28, 2008 | Richard Lea

Thirteen people have been arrested in Turkey as part of an investigation into an ultra-nationalist gang reported to be planning the assassination of Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.

According to reports in the Turkish press, the author of international bestsellers including My Name is Red was targeted as part of a campaign to sow chaos in preparation for a military coup, scheduled for 2009.

The suspects have now been remanded in custody, among them retired military officers and the lawyer Kemal Kerincisz. The latter has been instrumental in the pursuit of a series of writers and intellectuals through the courts, filing cases against Pamuk himself as well as the novelists Elif Shafak and Perihan Magden and the murdered journalist Hrant Dink.

Evidence cited in the Turkish media links the gang with a number of incidents which had been blamed on Islamist groups or separatist factions, and raises the prospect of an investigation into long-standing suspicions of illegal activity within the military and judiciary.

"These groups within the state have always existed," said a spokesperson for Istanbul's Free Expression Initiative, Sanar Yurdatapan, "but they've never been charged before. They were protected."

The charges brought against the suspects are not yet known. The investigation is being carried out under the terms of a law restricting media coverage.

"This could be a big development," continued Yurdatapan, suggesting that because figures very high in the military establishment have been connected with such groups it remains to be seen whether the cases will be brought to trial. "We are afraid to have hope."