AKP, CHP move to become intervening parties in coup attempt case

ANKARA

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) have requested to become intervening parties in the case in which top soldiers are on trial over events at the General Staff Headquarters on the night of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt.

“The government that the defendants planned to destroy and overthrow is the AKP government, and therefore it was the AKP’s legal personality that was intended to be removed from power in the coup attempt,” stated the petition issued by AKP lawyers Muammer Cemaloğlu and Burhanettin Sevencan to the Ankara 17th Criminal Court, which is prosecuting the case into the coup attempt.
 
The Ankara court started the first hearing of the case in which 221 suspects were on trial over events on the night of July 15 at the Turkish General Staff Headquarters, where Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and a number of high-ranking soldiers were held captive by coup plotters and then brought to the Akıncı Air Base in rural Ankara, the main location from which the coup activities were coordinated.
 
“It is seen by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office’s indictment that there were some actions and plans directed against the AKP headquarters. A number of tanks were directed against the headquarters and there were plans to overthrow [the government] by non-democratic methods and against the law,” the petition read.
 
“Therefore we are complaining about the defendants on behalf of our client, the chair of the AKP, because the party was harmed by the crimes attributed to the defendants in the prosecution conducted by your court,” it added.
 

CHP also demands to be intervening party
 
CHP spokesperson Bülent Tezcan also declared on May 22 that his party would issue a petition to the court, stating that each CHP deputy present at parliament on the night of the coup attempt would apply individually.
 
“We will petition to be an intervening party in the Akıncı Base case, which will start on Aug. 1, both as the CHP and as lawmakers of the party present at parliament on the night. We were affected directly and we will demand from the court board the acceptance of our intervention in the case,” Tezcan said.
 
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Gen. Akar, along with generals affected by the coup, have already been included in the indictment as victims and plaintiffs.