Turkish prosecutors on Tuesday demanded two life sentences and an additional 1,900 years in prison for US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for masterminding last month's attempted coup. But in a step back from threats to reintroduce the death penalty in the wake of the July 15 failed putsch, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said a fair trial would represent a harsher punishment for coup plotters than execution.
Ankara is sweeping ahead with a crackdown that has seen some 100,000 people either detained or lose their jobs, worrying Western allies, with simultaneous raids Tuesday against companies in Istanbul suspected of helping to finance the Gulen movement. Gulen, who lives in a secluded compound in Pennsylvania, has vehemently denied that he and his supporters were behind the coup attempt.
In a 2,527-page indictment approved by prosecutors in the western Usak region, Gulen is charged with "attempting to destroy the constitutional order by force" and "forming and running an armed terrorist group" among other accusations, the Anadolu news agency reported.
The so-called Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO) - the name Ankara gives the group led by Gulen - had infiltrated state archives through its members in the state institutions and intelligence units, according to the indictment. The group has used foundations, private schools, companies, student dormitories, media outlets and insurance companies to serve its purpose of taking control of all state institutions, it added.
It has also collected funds from businessmen in the guise of "donations" and transferred the money to the US through front companies, and by using banks in the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Germany, Anadolu reported.
The symbolic punishment of two life sentences and an additional 1,900 years in prison for Gulen is one of the heaviest ever demanded in Turkey since the death penalty was abolished in 2004 as part of the country's bid to join the European Union.
Yildirim on Tuesday called for a fair trial instead of the death penalty for suspected coup plotters, in comments seen as softer after Erdogan had suggested that the government could bring back capital punishment. "A person dies only once when executed," Yildirim said in parliament. "There are tougher ways to die than the death (penalty) for them. That is an impartial and fair trial." The prospect of the death penalty being restored had stunned the EU, which makes the abolition of capital punishment an unnegotiable condition for joining the bloc.