Erdoğan, political parties apply to intervene in key coup attempt case

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and political parties represented at parliament have applied to be intervening parties in the case on events at the Akıncı Air Base on the night of the July 2016 coup attempt.

“The Honorable President of the Republic of Turkey was damaged by the crimes committed and planned against himself, along with the crimes committed against the unity and values of the Turkish nation represented by the Presidential office, within the framework of the July 15 coup attempt, and thus it is necessary to apply to be an intervening party in this case,” read the letter sent from the presidency to the court board on Aug. 1. 

Apart from President Erdoğan, 444 different parties applied to the case to be either plaintiffs or intervening parties, ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Deputy Leader Hayati Yazıcı stated, announcing the ruling party’s application to the case. 

“I hope the suspects, perpetrators and putschists will get the punishments they deserve with the trial,”

Yazıcı said outside of the courtroom, where the AKP was present in the case with Central Executive Board members and several lawmakers.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) also applied to the court to be an intervening party.

“The perpetrators have to be given the heaviest punishments. We will also monitor the case, at which we will be an intervening party with our army of lawyers. We will try to make this case stay visible,” CHP Parliamentary Group Chair Levent Gök said outside the court alongside CHP representatives who followed the first hearing.

Parliamentary Speaker İsmail Kahraman, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ, Presidential General Secretary Fahri Kasırga, Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar, and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) will also be among the 444 intervening parties and plaintiffs in the case.


AKP-CHP row over death penalty and standard outfit

As protesters outside the courtroom chanted slogans demanding a return of the death penalty and the wearing of standard outfits by coup suspects, members of the AKP and the CHP engaged in a row over the protesters’ demands.

“The [government] is working on the subject by taking the examples from the world and their effects into consideration,” Yazıcı said.

“We will never allow any suspect of terror-related charges to use any material that would amount to making propaganda,” he added. 

The standard outfit was brought to the agenda after one coup suspect appeared in the dock wearing a T-shirt bearing the words “Hero” in English, stirring debate.

CHP’s Gök said such regulations should be implemented carefully, as “Turkey has implemented such standard outfit regulations in the past, and suspects won a case in the European Court of Human Rights on that matter.”

“These matters should be solved through more careful and lawful means,” he added.

Gök also stated that the ruling government “should act with reason” regarding demands to reinstate the death penalty.

“On the subject of this regulation, which will tear Turkey from its many legal and international ties, there should be a reasonable moves rather than emotional ones,” he said.