The ruling is likely to spark fresh political tensions over the case, already marred by serious doubts over the authenticity of key documents incriminating the suspects.

The court ruled that 133 defendants who were present at Friday's hearing -- among them the former chiefs of the air force and the navy, Ibrahim Firtina and Ozden Ornek -- be kept in jail as the trial proceeds, Anatolia reported.

The two retired commanders were immediately sent to prison, the NTV news channel said.

The court issued a separate warrant for another 29 defendants who did not attend the hearing, among them Cetin Dogan, the alleged mastermind of the coup plot.

A prosecutor had earlier asked for the arrest of some 180 suspects, citing new evidence in the case.

In July, the court had ordered the arrest of 102 defendants, but a higher court later annulled the warrant amid widespread criticism that there was no indication that the suspects would run away or destroy evidence.

The landmark trial opened in December, marking the toughest challenge yet to the powerful, staunchly-secularist Turkish army, which has unseated four governments since 1960 but has seen its clout wane under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the moderate offshoot of a banned Islamist movement.

A total of 196 defendants -- among them serving generals and admirals -- have been charged in the case, risking 15 to 20 years in jail.

The prosecution says the plot -- codenamed "Operation Sledgehammer" -- was drawn up and discussed at the First Army base in Istanbul shortly after the AKP came to power in November 2002 amid fears it would undermine Turkey's secular system.

The soldiers allegedly plotted to bomb two Istanbul mosques, and down a Turkish jet over the Aegean and blame it on Greece, hoping to discredit the AKP and garner public support for a coup.

Dogan, the then commander of the First Army, argues that documents from a seminar on a contingency plan based on a worst-case scenario of tensions with Greece and Islamist unrest at home had been doctored to look like a coup plan.

Critics of the indictment have highlighted a series of anachronistic expressions in some papers, arguing that some evidence appears to be outright fabrication.

They have pointed especially at a list of entities the coup plotters planned to control which features associations and hospitals that either did not exist or had different names in 2003.

The probe began in February after the Taraf daily, which routinely targets the military, published purported documents incriminating the defendants and then handed them over to prosecutors.

Taraf said an anonymous source had brought the documents -- papers, CDs and audio tapes -- in a suitcase.

Dozens of other suspects, among them soldiers, academics and journalists, are on trial as part of a separate probe into a purported secularist network accused of having planned bombings and assassinations to destabilise the AKP and prompt a military coup.

AKP opponents say the investigations have degenerated into a government-backed campaign to bully the secularist opposition and discredit the army.

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