Courts in Turkey have handed down life sentences to a total of 2,327 defendants, including senior military officers, on charges of involvement in the failed July 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency, citing data compiled from judicial sources, reported on Tuesday that chief public prosecutors conducted more than 100,000 investigations in the wake of the botched putsch.
The report added that 270 cases out of 289 were concluded, and that a total of 3,838 defendants were found guilty to have played a role in the abortive coup.
Turkish courts also ordered aggravated life sentences for 1,224 convicts.
Erdogan
Among them were 71 former generals, 829 former officers, 173 former non-commissioned officers, 50 former specialized sergeants and four former police officers.
Separately, 1,511 convicts were given jail terms, ranging from 14 months to 20 years.
An unspecified number of defendants were also acquitted of their accusations in nationwide cases.
During the 2016 botched putsch, a faction of the Turkish military declared that it had seized control of the country and the government of Erdogan was no more in charge. The attempt was, however, suppressed a few hours later.
Turkey has since accused US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen of having orchestrated the coup. The opposition figure is also accused of being behind a long-running campaign to topple the government via infiltrating the country’s institutions, particularly the army, police and the judiciary.
Gulen has denounced the “despicable putsch” and reiterated that he had no role in it.
“Accusations against me related to the coup attempt are baseless and politically-motivated slanders,” he said in a statement.
Gulen
The 77-year-old cleric has also called on Ankara to end its “witch hunt” of his followers, a move he says is aimed at “weeding out anyone it deems disloyal to President Erdogan and his regime.”
Turkish officials have frequently called on their US counterparts to extradite Gulen, but their demands have not been taken heed of.
Turkey ended the nationwide state of emergency, imposed since the coup, in July last year, after seven three-month renewals.
Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in Turkey on suspicion of having links to Gulen and the failed coup. Many more, including military staff, civil servants and journalists, have been sacked or suspended from work over the same accusations.
The international community and rights groups have been highly critical of the Turkish president over the massive dismissals and the crackdown.
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