Lawyer says Balyoz case is Kafkaesque

ANKARA

A flag-waving protester waited 12 hours to show support for suspects. DHA photo

A Kafkaesque situation is being experienced regarding the Balyoz (Sledgehammer) coup plot case, a defense lawyer in the case has said.

“The court didn’t limit and didn’t restrict our right of defense but rather destroyed it, crushed it like an insect, as in the novels of Kafka,” defense lawyer Köksal Bayraktar said on July 18, as he declared his objections to the violation of his right of defense.

Bayraktar, attorney for retired vice admiral, former North Sea Field Commander Mehmet Otuzbiroğlu, was speaking on the fourth day of an ongoing appeal trial of the “Balyoz” coup plot case, which began at the Supreme Court of Appeals on July 15 with lawyers presenting their arguments in the absence of the defendants.

“Here, we are judging the tale. Whatever you say, for two years, we have lived the Medieval age at court, no matter what you say. I don’t want to mention the problem regarding the law on behalf [the defendant] because there isn’t any crime. Can this digital data be accepted as proof, is it imaginable? If you think so [that it is acceptable], then you are living in a world of tales,” Bayraktar said.

 “This is what Sami Selçuk says,” he added, referring to a former president of the Supreme Court of Appeals. Some 250 of the defendants in the Balyoz coup plot case, which lasted for roughly three years, have been under arrest, including former Air Force chief Halil İbrahim Fırtına, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputy Engin Alan, 1st Army chief Çetin Doğan, and other retired generals.