Istanbul (dailynewyorknews) – Turkey took a step closer to prosecute senior officers behind a military coup in 1980, when a Turkish court on Tuesday approved the retirement of a military attorney general and former President Kenan Evren, semi- Anatolia Agency.
Ankara Criminal Court weighed 12 also announced his retirement from the Air Force chief Tahsin Sahinkaya was included in the indictment.
According to Anatolia, the indictment suggests a life sentence for Evren and Sahinkaya for committing “acts against state security forces.”
Some Turkish media have drawn parallels to the continuation of the history of the armed forces of Chile, Augusto Pinochet, the dictator once impregnable.
Evren, now 94, led to the overthrow of the Turkish government, when he ordered tanks into the streets of the capital in the hours before dawn on September 12, 1980.
The investment has ended years of bloody massacres between right and left most prominent voices of Turkey, and many in Turkey and abroad initially welcomed the coup.
A Time magazine cover of the time even offered a “paternalistic portrait of General Evren holds a collage of skyscrapers in Istanbul in his arms with the legend” Turkey remain united “,” according to “Turkey released a story modern Turkey. ”
However, following the military takeover, the accounts of human rights violations began to emerge. Hundreds of thousands have been imprisoned, many tortured.
The military junta has dissolved political parties, political officials and hundreds of people imprisoned on death row.
“September 12 is the mother of all coups in Turkey’s history,” said Yasemin Congar, columnist and associate editor of the Turkish newspaper “Taraf”. “It has damaged the country and probably caused incurable damage a whole generation of young people in this society.”
Hugh Pope, co-author of “Turkey announced,” said the coup “in Turkish politics back to kindergarten.”
“[Evren] somehow wanted to force politicians to be less confrontational, but it has in its race to the bottom so that the Turkish political system is still recovering from it,” he said. “Unfortunately, the consequences of their actions ruined so many lives of many people. One wonders how Turkey will address that.”
According to an article of the Turkish Constitution, which was written by the military junta in 1982, Evren and his companions were protected from prosecution.
However, the recent constitutional amendments drafted and ratified by the courts the power of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Development Party paved the way for a prosecutor’s question Evren at home last year.
Erdogan’s government has also overseen the arrest and prosecution of dozens of army generals accused of a much more recent military plot, which has never been done successfully.
According to Anatolia Agency, authorities arrested retired general Hursit Tolon on Tuesday in the last frame. And last week, authorities arrested retired Gen. Ilker Basbug, commander of the armed forces of Turkey until 2010.
Some critics have called the prosecution a witch hunt aimed at political opponents of the government of Erdogan.
For others, was a vital process to bring the army under the control of civilian elected officials. Since 1960, both politically dominant Turkish armed forces overthrew four governments.
“Ending impunity belief is very, very important,” Congar said the newspaper “Taraf”, which has published several damning reports on the Turkish army in recent years. “It’s a big step, obviously, very late. These generals are very old. But it remains symbolically very important to this country.”
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/10/world/europe/turkey-coup-indictment/index.html?hpt=ieu_c2
