Turkey's deputy prime minister defended the ruling party in the country's top court Thursday against charges that it is steering the country toward Islamic rule.

The chief prosecutor is demanding the Islamic-rooted party be disbanded for anti-secular activity and that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and 70 other party members be barred from joining a political party for five years.

The court will deliver a verdict in the coming months. Some observers say a decision to disband the party could throw the country into political and economic instability.

The case is being heard as police rounded up two retired senior generals and some of the government's fiercest critics as part of a widening, yearlong investigation into allegations of a coup plot against the Islamic-leaning government by secularists.

The court case and the arrests have heightened tensions in Turkey. Erdogan's party is locked in a power struggle with secular groups supported by the military and other state institutions, including the judiciary.

Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek, a former lawyer, and another party official were delivering arguments in the party's defense during Thursday's closed-door hearing at the Constitutional Court.

Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya laid out his case against the party Tuesday, arguing that was a "clear and present" danger that the ruling party was seeking to impose Islamic law on Turkey.

Yalcinkaya has cited the government's attempt to permit Islamic-style head scarves at universities — an attempt thwarted by the Constitutional Court, which ruled last month the measure was unconstitutional.

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