The two surviving leaders of Turkey's 1980 coup went on trial Wednesday at an Ankara courthouse where judges rejected pleas by the ailing defendants that they should be spared prosecution. Hundreds of demonstrators, mostly from left-wing political parties, staged a protest in front of the court as the much-anticipated case began amid tight security and only limited access to the media.
However the defendants - 94-year-old former president Kenan Evren and his co-conspirator Tahsin Sahinkaya - were both absent due to poor health. Evren broke his arm in a fall a few days ago at a military hospital in Ankara, where he is recovering from intestinal surgery, a relative told AFP.
The defendants' lawyer, Bulent Acar, argued the court could not try Evren and Sahinkaya, 86, because the 1982 constitution, introduced by the junta after two years of military rule, was still valid and granted it no such power. The high court judges however rejected the objection, according to the semi-official Anatolia news agency, one of the few media allowed in the trial which should last three days.
The provision exempting the generals from trial was removed as part of a package of amendments adopted in a referendum exactly 30 years after the coup. The pair face life imprisonment if convicted of committing crimes against the state. The military, which has long seen itself as the guarantor of secularism in Turkey, staged three coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980 as well as pressuring an Islamist-rooted government to relinquish power in 1997.
But the coup on September 12, 1980, was the bloodiest of them all. Hundreds of thousands of people were arrested, about 250,000 were charged, 50 were executed, dozens more were tortured to death and tens of thousands were exiled. The trial is seen as the latest chapter in a campaign by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government against the once unassailable top brass.
The Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and parliament are plaintiffs in the case as alleged victims of the 1980 coup. President Abdullah Gul, a close ally of Erdogan, said Wednesday that the case would pave the way for a "very significant change of mentality" in Turkey society which he said would act as a deterrent against any more coup attempts.
Protesters gathered outside the court expressed their relief that the case had finally been brought before judges. Some carried banners proclaiming that people who resisted the junta would now "have the final say". One of the protesters, 56-year-old Ali Imer, told how he was arrested on the day of the coup and subsequently tortured.
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