Face-to-face with your coup raider

It was the second time in my life I saw his face. The first time was one year and one day ago, on the night of the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, when he was heading a military team that raided the headquarters of Hürriyet and CNN Türk, as part of a raid on Doğan Media Center, in Istanbul at about 03:00 a.m. on July 16. The second time was yesterday on July 17 at the 27th Criminal Court in Istanbul. 

Army Captain Süleyman Ahmet Kaya was being accused of restricting freedoms by capturing the employees of Hürriyet, threatening them more than once with guns and being a part of a military coup attempt aiming to overthrow the government, which meant three times life sentences as for the two other army captains. For the other 14 soldiers, life sentences from 15 years were sought. In addition, Kaya was also accused of killing a civilian protester right outside the Doğan Media Center premises' fences as a result of an armed clash he and his soldiers were engaged in against police forces that surrounded our building.

That night, as the most senior editor in the building, I had to deal with him and the team he was commanding, together with other editors and reporters. At the CNN Türk building it was Erdoğan Aktaş, and at the Kanal D studios it was Süleyman Sarılar who were doing the same thing.

The first thing I focused on was to convince him to tell his soldiers to put down their G-3 automatic rifles and stop pointing them at our faces, since there was no one with arms in our newspaper's offices and an unwanted accident had to be avoided. The privates in the team seemed to be unaware of anything, and actually they were the ones who were trembling with agitation. A trembling finger could have caused a disaster. It was possible to convince him after a...