Trial of Turkish coup soldiers begins
MUGLA, Turkey: Prosecutors called for life sentences for more than 40 Turkish soldiers at the start of their trial for attempting to assassinate President Tayyip Erdogan during last year’s failed coup, according to the indictment obtained by Reuters.
Under tight security, the defendants were bussed in to a courthouse in the southwestern city of Mugla, not far from the luxury resort where Erdogan and his family narrowly escaped the soldiers, fleeing in a helicopter shortly before their hotel was attacked.
More than 240 people were killed during the failed coup on July 15.
Yesterday, prosecutors in Mugla charged 47 suspects, almost all of them soldiers, with offences including attempting to assassinate the president, breaching the constitution and belonging to an armed terrorist organisation.
One of the first defendants to testify admitted to accepting a mission to seize, but not kill, Erdogan.
‘‘My mission was to take the president and bring him to Akinci air base safe and sound,’’ Gokhan Sonmezates told the court, referring to a base outside Ankara that briefly functioned as a command centre for the coup plotters.
Turkey says the coup was orchestrated by a USbased Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen. The cleric, who has lived in selfimposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied the charges and condemned the coup.
Since the failed coup, more than 40,000 people have been arrested and more than 100,000 have been sacked or suspended from the military, civil service and private sector.
Turkey launched its first criminal trial related to the coup in December, and more trials are expected. — Reuters