Complainants not confident with court trying 'post-modern' Feb 28 coup suspects

ANKARA

Cüneyt Toraman suggested the court’s manner has not complied with the principles of a fair trial and further maintained the court did not have the required abilities and has not been cognizant of the case file. AA photo

Lawyers for seven complainants in an ongoing coup case trial have appealed for the recusation of judge, arguing the court’s manner has not been line in with the principles of fair trial.

In their appeal at the 33th hearing of the case where 103 suspects involved in a notorious military intervention on Feb. 28, 1997, often described as a “post-modern coup,” are being tried. Cüneyt Toraman and Hüsnü Tuna asked to read a related petition.

Toraman, reading the petition, suggested the court’s manner has not complied with the principles of a fair trial and further maintained the court did not have the required abilities and has not been cognizant of the case file, the Anadolu Agency reported.

Upon these remarks, the chief of the Ankara 13th High Criminal Court, Judge Tayyar Köksal, and the court’s member, Judge Hakan Oruç, warned Toraman and urged him to submit his appeal for recusation in written form.

“The court has rights, if you tell us ‘You are unqualified,’ then this will be an insult. You cannot say it,” Oruç was quoted as saying when Toraman insisted on reading the petition.

Eventually, Toraman submitted his petition.

‘Çiller takes declaration to Erbakan’

It was then-Deputy Prime Minister Tansu Çiller who took the Feb. 28 National Security Council (MGK) declaration to then-Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan to receive his signature on the declaration, then-Secretary-General of the MGK, ret. Gen. İlhan Kılıç, meanwhile, told the court on Nov. 18.

The release of the declaration eventually forced the late Erbakan to resign in June 1997.

The Feb. 28 MGK declaration asked the government to comply with legislation on secularism while giving the government a list of actions to take in regards to the situation.