Ahmet Özçetin

In Ankara this week I closely followed the defense and questioning of Ahmet Tosun, one of the most critical suspects in the Akıncı Air Base case trial.

When staff pilot captains İlker Hazinedar and Oğuz Alper Emrah were assigned on a flight mission, it was nearly midnight. They did not know the flight routes and targets. Akıncı Air Base Operations Commander Staff Col. Ahmet Özçetin had said, "You take off, the information will come while you're in the air."

When staff pilot captains İlker Hazinedar and Oğuz Alper Emrah were assigned on a flight mission, it was nearly midnight. They did not know the flight routes and targets. Akıncı Air Base Operations Commander Staff Col. Ahmet Özçetin had said, "You take off, the information will come while you're in the air."

Hasan Hüsnü Balıkçı who flies with the call sign "ASLAN 5" says, "We are going towards the target and dropping [the bomb]."

Mustafa Azimetli who flies with the call sign "ASLAN 1" says, "Okay," and adds, "May God help you…"

The wish "May God help you" is not communicated in the skies of Northern Iraq in Kandil, but the airspace above the capital Ankara's city center. 

First lieutenant Müslim Macit is the pilot with the lowest rank who joined the coup attempt on the night of July 15 at Akıncı Air Base.

Businessman Hakan Çiçek who was caught in the morning of July 16 near Akıncı base while trying to escape in the open field confessed in his testimony to the prosecutor's office to have spent the night at the base.

The pilot who hit the Presidential Palace in Ankara during the July 15 failed coup has said that he hit the building on purpose as part of the coup, making him one of the first soldiers to admit that he acted knowing that there was a putsch against the country's elected government.