Supreme Court upholds sentence of those who ‘helped assassinate president’

ANKARA

The Supreme Court has upheld the sentences given to two people on trial for allegedly aiding the FETÖ team that tried to assassinate President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during the July 15 coup d’état.

The Supreme Court upheld the aggravated life sentence given to former chief aide Ali Yazıcı, who allegedly reported the hotel where the president was staying during the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, and the 13 years and four months prison sentence given to former Dalaman Naval Air Base Commander Colonel Cenk Bahadır Avcı.

The 37-person team, which attacked the hotel where Erdoğan was staying in the Aegean province of Muğla’s Marmaris district, killed two police officers and fled.

A lawsuit was filed against 37 military personnel who came to Marmaris for the assassination act, along with those identified as instigating or helping and a total of 46 people, three of whom were fugitives, including FETÖ leader Fetullah Gülen.

Within the scope of the investigation, 25 soldiers were arrested, including Sergeant Zekeriya Kuzu, who is nicknamed Paşa and was stated to be “FETÖ’s head of the Çiğli Main Jet Base.”

Later, six former captains, three former first lieutenants and one former lieutenant were arrested, who had previously trained and served in the same association with former Major Şükrü Seymen, who was the battalion commander at the Special Forces Command.

The indictment, which demanded six aggravated life sentences for each of the defendants, was accepted by a local court in Muğla.

Seymen, Kuzu and Former Brigadier General Gökhan Şahin Sönmezateş were sentenced to four aggravated life sentences each for “assassination attempt to the president,” “attempting to change the constitutional order” and “deliberate murder,” while Yazıcı was sentenced to 18 years.