Justice Minister Bozdağ slams depositions of suspected coup plotters

ANKARA

AA photo

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ slammed former top soldiers who are currently suspects in the main case into the July 15, 2016, coup attempt for denying their involvement in the events that took place at the general staff headquarters on the night of the coup, stating that the defendants “are acting in accordance with Fethullah Gülen’s instructions.”

“During the trial, the members of the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization [FETÖ] and those who have joined them later, said ‘we did not do it,’ as if they have all agreed beforehand to say the same thing. They dropped bombs and they were caught in action. And yet they say ‘I am not that.’ Who is it if it is not you?” Bozdağ said on June 2. 

“There is a photograph at the Akıncı airbase, a video footage, and everything. They say ‘I am not that,’” he added. 

His comments came after former top soldiers currently trialed over allegations of participating in the clashes that took place at the military headquarters denied the accusations in their defenses in court. 

Bozdağ said Gülen, who is believed to have masterminded the coup attempt and the leader of FETÖ, instructed the former soldiers to deny the allegations. 

“The leader of the organization, the terrorist leader Gülen, instructed them to deny and refused everything. Can you deny the existence of the sun? We all see it. They are denying the obvious. They are denying and rejecting as if they are mocking the legitimacy of the court and the Turkish nation,” Bozdağ said. 

On July 15, 2016, Chief of Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar along with other top soldiers were held at gunpoint and forcefully brought to Akıncı, the airbase where the coup was planned and orchestrated in the outskirts of Ankara.