Navy officers convicted in Balyoz trial call on military commanders to end silence

ANKARA

Navy officers imprisoned for alleged involvement in the Balyoz coup plans released a joint statement condemning their superiors for remaining silent even after the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld their convictions.

“As long as you remain silent, don’t come to funerals of our family members who died out of our grief, or to our spouses, children our family elders for consolation,” the officers jailed in Mamak military prison in Ankara said in the six-page written statement on Oct. 18.

The officers said the commanders’ remaining silent even after the Balyoz (Sledgehemmer) coup plot case trial process is over is “inapprehensible.”

The remonstrant officers singled out retired Navy Commander Nusret Güner, who resigned in protest against the case in December, saying “the retired commander, who shouted our innocence everywhere and under every condition, stopped after seeing the unlawfulness and injustice.”

After the Supreme Court of Appeals’ verdict, Turkish admirals, Coast Guard Commander Vice Admiral Atilla Kezek, Coast Guard Commander Rear Admiral Sami Örgüç and five or six other high-ranking Turkish naval officers have also resigned.

Welcoming their resignation, the statement called all the soldiers of the Turkish army to unite and “shout” for these convicted officers’ “innocence” as being the ones who knew them the most.