Life sentence demanded for 159 soldiers over attempt to seize airport during Turkey coup
Rebel soldiers were planning to bring in thousands of other coup-plotters to Istanbul's Ataturk Airport via military transport aircrafts.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) - A Turkish prosecutor in Istanbul on Friday demanded life sentence for 159 soldiers who took part in an operation to seize the Ataturk Airport, the country's largest and busiest, in July 2016 during a night-long failed coup d'etat against the government.
Istanbul's chief prosecutor charged the suspects, 95 of them under detention and all dismissed from the army, with attempting to overthrow the constitutional order, to destroy the nation's parliament in Ankara, and to topple the government.
State media reported that the soldiers were also accused of membership in a terrorist organization, namely the movement of the US-based reclusive Turkish Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gulen, a one-time ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan alleged Gulen masterminded the failed coup that left 249 civilians and 24 rebel soldiers dead, a charge the latter denies.
Gulen's followers used to hold influential positions in thousands within the judiciary, police, bureaucracy, politics and the army before a massive purge by Erdogan following the coup.
The unsuccessful putsch concentrating in Istanbul and capital Ankara by a clique within the military trapped thousands of people including foreigners during the night of July 15-16 2016 as flights across the country halted amid the chaos.
Rebels were planning to bring in thousands of other coup-plotters to Istanbul via military transport aircrafts.
A nation-wide state of emergency, extended several times since July 2016 remains in place. It provides the government, its judiciary, and the police with broad, unchecked powers.
During the coup, The Turkish Parliament was bombed three times by F-16s.
More than 50,000 people have been arrested over alleged links to the coup and Gulen in a massive crackdown under the state of emergency rules.
Decrees by Erdogan has expelled over 120,000 state employees.
In the aftermath of the coup, Kurdish political movement, primarily the opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has taken its share of the crackdown with its co-leader Selahattin Demirtas, nine other lawmakers, over 80 mayors and thousands of members remaining in jail.
The government has also shuttered down scores of Kurdish TV, radio stations, dailies, websites, news agencies, as it seized almost 100 municipalities.
Editing by Sam A.
