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Turkish court finds 43 soldiers guilty of plot to assassinate Erdoğan Turkish court finds 43 soldiers guilty of plot to assassinate Erdoğan
(about 1 hour later)
A Turkish court has found 43 former soldiers guilty of attempting to kill President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during last year’s failed coup, and handed most of them life sentences, in the highest-profile case related to the attempted putsch so far. A Turkish court has handed down life sentences to dozens of people accused of attempting to assassinate President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in one of the highest-profile trials dealing with last year’s attempted military coup.
Judge Emirsah Bastog read out guilty verdicts for 43 of the 47 defendants, at the court in Muğla, south-western Turkey. Muğla is near the luxury resort where Erdoğan and his family narrowly escaped a team of rogue soldiers who stormed his hotel during the night of the coup. Nearly 50 defendants stood trial in Muğla, near where soldiers in helicopters stormed a resort hotel where Erdoğan was on holiday in July 2016, just minutes after the Turkish leader had fled. The suspects, who are accused of orchestrating the ambush, include the president’s former military aide and other senior officers.
The trial, which started in February, is part of a sweeping crackdown that followed the July 2016 failed putsch and is the biggest such case to reach a verdict. The court sentenced 40 to life in prison, with some receiving aggravated life sentences, reducing the possibility of parole.
“I hope the verdict today is beneficial to everyone,” Bastog said, as he sentenced 34 of the accused to aggravated life sentences, the harshest punishment possible under Turkish law because it lengthens the minimum sentence required for parole. “Defendants have been found guilty on the charge of attempting to assassinate the president,” Judge Emirsah Bastog told the packed courtroom, according to Reuters.
Another seven defendants were given life sentences; two others were given lesser sentences. The case in Muğla, which began in February, is one of several trials taking place around the country over the attempted putsch, in which helicopters and fighter jets took to the skies of Ankara and Istanbul and tanks rolled out into the streets of Turkey’s largest cities in an attempt to overthrow Erdoğan.
“Several defendants have been found guilty on the charge of attempting to assassinate the president,” Bastog told the packed courtroom. The coup was beaten back, but 250 people were killed, more than 2,000 injured and the country’s parliament was bombed in a traumatic episode that Turkey has yet to come to terms with.
One was acquitted. No verdict was given for the three who were tried in absentia, including US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom Ankara blames for orchestrating the coup. Erdoğan was on holiday in the resort town of Marmaris when the plot began, and barely escaped from the hotel before it was stormed by coup soldiers. He would go on to address the country through the mobile phone application FaceTime, urging ordinary citizens to take to the streets to defend democracy.
The court heard final statements from the defendants just before Bastog delivered his verdict. Some of the accused said they did not believe the court could deliver a fair verdict and had been under political pressure. The government blames a movement led by Fethullah Gülen, a US-based exiled preacher with thousands of grassroots followers, for orchestrating the coup attempt and has sought the reclusive cleric’s extradition.
“From the moment I was arrested at the airbase on 16 July, I was treated like a criminal,” Ergün Şahin, a former air force lieutenant, told the court. The plot was followed by wide-ranging crackdown that has led to tens of thousands of people being imprisoned or dismissed from their jobs in the judiciary, civil service, military, police, media and academia in a purge that has gone beyond the alleged coup plotters to encompass dissidents of all stripes.
Pictures released in the aftermath of the coup showed some suspected plotters – including high-ranking military officers – stripped to their underpants, handcuffed and their faces bruised. The trial in Muğla involved 47 suspects, including two who remain at large. Ali Yazıcı, Erdoğan’s former military aide, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
“Words don’t mean anything here as we didn’t have chance to a fair trial,” said another defendant, Gökhan Sen. “We are just the grass that elephants trampled on during their fight.“ The accused protested that they had not been treated fairly. One former lieutenant said the accused were treated like criminals from the moment of arrest. Another said the trial was unfair, and that the defendants “are just the grass that elephants trampled on during the fight”, according to a Reuters report from inside court.
More than 240 people were killed on the night of 15 July last year when putschists commandeered tanks, warplanes and helicopters, attacking parliament and attempting to overthrow the government. The crackdown on alleged coup plotters continued this week, with prosecutors issuing 140 arrest warrants for education and youth ministry staff on Tuesday and another 112 warrants for former municipal workers accused of links to the Gülen movement.
The government blames the network of Gülen, a former ally of Erdoğan. Gülen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement and condemned the coup. The broad crackdown has polarised Turkey after a brief moment of unity in the aftermath of the coup, when all political parties condemned and opposed the putsch. Opponents of Erdoğan say he took advantage of the coup plot to consolidate his power, purging dissidents and persecuting critical media outlets
A total of 47 defendants were on trial, 43 of whom have been held in detention during the seven-and-a-half month hearing. Gülen was being tried in absentia. Most of the defendants were soldiers. Earlier this year, a referendum that expanded the president’s power was narrowly approved by voters, setting the stage for national and presidential elections in 2019.