Leaders of 1980 military coup in Turkey are jailed for life after showcase trial

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/19/turkey-coup-leaders-trial-jailed

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Two ageing retired Turkish military leaders were jailed for life on Wednesday for their roles in the traumatic putsch of 1980, in a trial seen as an attempt by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan to put an end to the long record of army involvement in Turkish politics.

In a historic court ruling, General Kenan Evren, aged 96 – for decades the symbolic emodiment of interfering military rule in Turkey – was sentenced to life in prison for preparing and leading the military coup on 12 September 1980.

It was the most brutal military coup in modern Turkish history. Fifty people were executed by the military, about 600,000 were arrested and hundreds disappeared.

He was sentenced along with former air force chief Tahsin Sahinkaya, 89.

Evren, who served as president after three years of military rule, never expressed regret for his role in the military takeover, arguing that it had been necessary to end years of bloody street fighting between rightwing and leftwing groups in Turkey.

"They often talk about sentencing those responsible [for the military coup]," he said in 2009. " I would like to remind those who want to put me on trial of the state of our country back in those days. Every day 20 to 25 people were killed. The police were unable to enter many neighbourhoods. Do they think we did this for nothing?"

Referring to those executed afterwards, Evren famously asked: "Should we have fed them instead of hanging them?"

The generals seized power on 12 September 1980, but the trial against them started only in 2012 after the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) revoked their immunity by pushing through constitutional amendments via a popular referendum in 2010.

The present Turkish constitution, voted on in 1982, is also a product of the military coup.

Because of the poor state of their health, the defendants took part in the trial from military hospital beds in Ankara and Istanbul.

"This is a very important milestone for Turkey in the sense that this is the first time Turkey has faced up to its history of military coups. It breaks with the persistent culture of impunity. This is the first time the military has been brought to justice for crimes committed in the past," said Cengiz Aktar, a political analyst.

"This is not a political decision at all,"he said. "The AKP government doesn't really care about that part of the military and its history. Yes, the harshest possible sentence might be surprising, but some kind of severe punishment was to be expected."

The trial was accompanied by arguments over whether provisions in Turkey's military rules validated the army's intervention in political life.

The prosecutor in the case dismissed the arguments. "The armed services law does not give anybody the right to change the democratic order and to stage a military coup that then leads to the foundation of a dictatorship,"he said.