A Turkish court on Friday rejected an appeal by prosecutors to arrest former general Kenan Evren, disappointing victims who had hoped the 94-year-old's detention would guarantee he appear in person to face charges of overthrowing democracy in a 1980 coup.
Evren and another coup plotter, former air force commander Tahsin Sahinkaya, 87, have so far failed to appear in court, pleading their ill health keeps them from attending the trial which began this week. The case marks a watershed in the decades-old tussle for supremacy between elected politicians and Turkey's army.
Judges turned down a request for an arrest warrant due to the age and ill-health of both men, who are in military hospitals. "Every coup maker, every dictator in the world has been jailed pending trial. The failure to have defendants present at the court is the most important shortcoming of this case," lawyer Omer Kavilli told Reuters outside the court.
Victims' lawyers said the two should be treated no differently to former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. Both were forced to appear in court, one on a bed behind bars, the other in a wheelchair. The panel of three judges ruled they would write to the military hospitals to find out if they could set up video links to allow Evren and Sahinkaya to present their defence.
They said they would ask doctors if the lives of the two defendants would be at risk if brought to court. The pair could still be summoned to the courtroom if doctors allow it. In the trial's third day, judges accepted requests by Turkey's main opposition party the Republican People's Party (CHP), the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), parliament, trade unions and a 105-year-old mother whose son was tortured and killed, to be co-plaintiffs on the case.
"Were you not ashamed Kenan Evren when you killed my son?" 105-year-old Berfo Ana told the court. "May his house be demolished, his hearth be extinguished ... Why didn't you bring that dishonourable wretch here?" she asked the judge. The breadth of the requests signalled just how many groups suffered in the three years of military rule following the coup, Turkey's third in 20 years.
Turkey remains haunted by those times, when virtually the entire political class was rounded up and interned. Hundreds died in jail, thousands were tortured and many more disappeared. It is only in the last 10 years that the power of Turkey's military "Pashas" has been gradually reined in as part of democratic reforms by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government aimed at bringing Turkey closer to European Union membership. Judges at the Ankara court on Friday also asked the Ankara chief prosecutor's office to investigate whether the two defendants instigated systematic torture.
Comments
Comments are closed.