Political leaders and much of the public marked the Feb. 28, 1997 coup, the so-called "post-modern coup," which caused a nationwide victimization campaign that especially targeted women with headscarves and conservatives in general.According to Şeref Malkoç, who at the time was serving as the Trabzon deputy of the Welfare Party (RP) and is now the chief adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said coup leaders twice contemplated arresting the RP chairman and Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, with politicians averting the danger at the last second.Malkoç remembered Erbakan calling him in April 1998 after the RP was shut down and Erbakan was banned from politics for five years. "He told me that police officers from Ankara Police Department had come to his home to arrest him. I went to his home in Balgat and saw the armed police had surrounded the house. I talked to their chief and he told me there was an order. I went to Ankara Police Chief Cevdet Saral and asked how he could send his officers to pick up a prime minister. He told me the order had come from Prosecutor Nuh Mete Yüksel. We approached the government and ensured the police were withdrawn."The second attempt to arrest Erbakan came on September 1999 at Erbakan's summer home in Altınoluk. He said Erbakan had been found guilty in a trial. "We had seven days to lodge an appeal for the postponement of the implementation and we did so. One morning he called to say that gendarmerie soldiers had come to take him away. I immediately called the prosecutor. When he told me he would jail Erbakan, I objected, telling him that legally he had no right. The prosecutor told me I couldn't teach him how the law worked."Malkoç then said that he went to speak to Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Türk who was not at his office. He then called him at his home and criticized him about his inability to do anything while prosecutors were violating the law under his watch. "Thankfully, he looked into the matter and the postponement decision that we couldn't get for five days was implemented within five hours. If not, Erbakan would have been arrested in front of cameras. At a time when coup leaders threatened to shed blood and kill thousands to get what they wanted, Erbakan sacrificed himself to prevent any bloodshed. When they shut down his party and toppled his government at gunpoint, he said such incidents had no importance in the light of history and called on all to avoid being incited by such acts. He tried to protect his country and nation."