Turkey: 52 get heavy life terms for deadly 2016 FETO coup bid

By Filiz Kinik and Ali Cevahir Akturk

ISTANBUL (AA) - A criminal high court in Istanbul on Friday gave aggravated life sentences to 52 people for trying to occupy a municipality building -- leaving over a dozen people dead -- the night of the 2016 defeated coup by the FETO terrorist group, a judicial source said on Friday.

At the mayor’s office in Istanbul, 14 people were martyred and 152 wounded, including professor Ilhan Varank, the older brother of Mustafa Varank, a top adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who also faced an assassination attempt that night.

Former Col. Zeki Demir, former captains Ramazan Erturk, Yakup Karacelik and Mustafa Alper Sengoren, former Lt. Omer Sevim, and former military personnel Fatih Sultan Mehmet Samanci, Sercan Met and Omer Er were handed aggravated life sentences for attempting to overthrow the government and the constitutional order.

Thirty-two privates were also sentences to life for violating the Turkish Constitution.

All 52 were also sentenced to 14 aggravated life sentences for the deliberate killing of 14 people and a total of almost 2,912 years for attempting to kill 182 people.

The court also gave aggravated life sentences to city worker Mehmet Tunc and Gokay Atilla Bostan, the former Istanbul head of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), on the same charges.

The July 15, 2016 defeated coup orchestrated by the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen left in total 250 people martyred and some 2,200 injured.

Turkey also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.