FACTBOX-What's next in Turkish AK Party court case

(Reuters) - Turkey's Constitutional Court accepted a case in March by a chief prosecutor who seeks the closure of the ruling AK Party.

Following is some background to the case and possible outcomes:

CASE:

* Petition was filed on March 14 by the chief prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals on the grounds that the AK Party, in government since November 2002, was trying to destroy secularism and turn Turkey into an Islamic state.

* Prosecutor's indictment also calls for 71 AK Party members, including President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, to be banned from belonging to a political party for five years.

* Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya accuses the party of maintaining ties with previously banned Islamist parties from the 1990s and says AK Party supporters wedded to Islamist ideas are steadily infiltrating state structures.

TWO SIDES:

* Turkey's secularist establishment, including judges and army generals, have long accused the AK Party of plotting to erode the separation of state and religion, something the government denies. Secularists say an amendment to the constitution to lift a ban on female students wearing the Muslim headscarf at university was further proof of this. The Constitutional Court overturned that reform on Thursday.

* AK Party says the court case is politically motivated.