Turkey Hands Down Aggravated Life Sentences for 2016 Plotters

Arrested soldiers who participated in the 2016 attempted coup are accompanied by Turkish soldiers as they arrive at the court in Sincan Prison before trial in Ankara, August 1, 2017. Photo: EPA/TUMAY BERKIN

Akinci Air Base in Ankara was the headquarters of the plotters and the operations of the abortive coup attempt were managed there, including air strikes on civilians.

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar, the chief of the General Staff at the time, was also held hostage in the base.

The court handed multiple life sentences of between 16 and 79 times to pilots, military personnel and civilians who took role in the coup attempt and the air strikes.

The court handed down the maximum punishments available and showed no leniency to the convicted coup plotters.

"The time of military coups is over. We hope a military coup like this will not be repeated in Turkey or elsewhere in the world," Leyla Sahin Usta, vice-president of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, told the press after the court verdicts.

On July 15, 2016, Turkey saw a failed coup attempt that was perpetrated by a minority group within the military. The coup attempt was defeated in only one night by the loyalist soldiers and by people who took to the streets in support of the elected government. During the night of July 15, 2016, 251 people were killed and nearly 2,200 injured.

Ankara accuses Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish preacher who has lived in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999, of orchestrating the failed coup with his supporters within the army, police and other state institutions. It describes his supporters as the "Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation" or "FETO" for short.

Gulen, however, has denied any connection to the coup attempt...