An Istanbul court on Monday ordered the release of 19 men convicted with scores of others of plotting a coup in the controversial Ergenekon case, which the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan used to break the political power of Turkey’s military. The court said the men should be released because the Parliament recently reduced the maximum detention period before a conviction to five years, and the prisoners had already been detained longer than that. The court order followed the release of a former army chief last week after the Constitutional Court’s ruling critical of the conduct of the recently abolished Special Court that carried out the Ergenekon trial. The trial, which lasted five years, prompted criticism at home and abroad, with several international organizations describing the prosecution of the more than 200 suspects as unfair, with unnecessary arrests, secret witnesses and disputes over evidence. Some Turkish analysts characterized Monday’s releases as part of a bid by the government to increase its popularity before local elections in two weeks and gain the upper hand in a power struggle with a pro-Islamic network influential in the judiciary and the police.