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A Turkish court has sentenced three former army generals to 20 years in jail each for plotting a coup, BBC reported.

Nearly 330 other officers - including some senior military figures - were also convicted for their involvement in the plot.

Thirty-four people were acquitted. All the defendants denied the charges.

The officers were accused of plotting to bomb mosques and trying to trigger a war with Greece in order to justify a military coup.

Former army generals Cetin Dogan, Ozden Ornek and Ibrahim Firtina were initially given life sentences by the court in Silivri, near Istanbul, but then their sentences were dropped to 20 years.

The defendants denounced the evidence as fabricated and accused the government of carrying out a witch-hunt against the armed forces.

Speaking before the sentences were announced, Gen Dogan, former commander of Turkey's First Army, branded the two-year trial "unfair and unlawful."

He is accused of being the mastermind behind the 2003 alleged plot.

Prosecutors say "Operation Sledgehammer" was a conspiracy to trigger a coup against the elected government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.