15 July hearing starts amid tension in Istanbul. First application made

The trial into 29 police officers in connection with the 15 July coup attempt has started Silivri Prison. A total of 29 defendants, 24 of whom are on remand for this offence and one on another, and their counsel were present at the hearing. Gendarmerie teams took widespread security measures around the courtroom where the hearing was held. Members of the 15 July Association wanted to display a banner bearing the name of the association in the car parking area situated close to the entrance gate to Silivri Prison. The gendarmerie did not permit the group to display the banner. Following a short-lasting argument, the group refrained from displaying the banner and began to wait in silence.

FIRST APPLICATION IN THE 15 JULY TRIAL

Nineteen of the defendants’ first degree relatives attended at the courtroom. The 15 July Association and Chair of the Jurists Association, Mehmet Sarı, Attorney-at-Law, announced that they would also come to the hearing and apply to intervene.

Once the hearing commenced, Presiding Judge of Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 22, Fikret Demir, gave information as to how the proceedings would be conducted to those present and said that the hearing would continue until Friday and the hearings would be conducted via video link. The court proceeded to conduct identification checks. Sixteen of the defendants were said to have been expelled from the force, one of them had had his contract terminated and the others had been suspended.

INDICTMENT IS READ

Then, the counsel of defendants Hakan Erkol, Sertaç Kuytu, Ersan Gönül, Cengiz Çalık and Soytürk Yıldız applied for them to be separated from the file, stating that their clients had no connection with the offence. The court bench denied the applications. The hearing continued with Presiding Judge, Fikret Demir, reading the indictment in summary.

PENALTIES CALLED FOR

The first trial in connection with the 15 July coup in Istanbul was brought against 29 police officers, 25 of whom are on remand, including the police helicopter pilots. Istanbul Republic Prosecutor Evliya Çalışkan has drawn up an indictment running to 59 pages and is calling for aggravated triple life sentences for 21 of the officers for the offence of ‘attempting a coup’. As to the remaining 8 officers, he wants them to be awarded prison terms of from seven and a half years to fifteen years for the offence of ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’.
The indictment has been accepted by Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 22. The court ruled that the hearings be held at Silivri. The first hearing begins on 27 November (today) and will last four days.

‘IN AN ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH WOMEN SHELTERED WITH THEIR CHILDREN IN THEIR LAP AGAINST TANKS AND BOMBS’
 
Republic Prosecutor Evliya Çalışkan alleges in the indictment he has drafted that the said officers either failed to show up for duty or tried to dissuade their colleagues and citizens who were resisting the coup. Evliya Çalışkan has included the following words in his indictment about the suspect police officers:

‘In an environment in which a single person who was in the right place at the right time dictated the country’s fate with an appropriately spoken brave comment or a single bullet appropriately used, in which women sheltered with their children in their lap against tanks and bombs and men threw themselves in front of tanks, and in which the terrorist organisation was given a lesson in heroism and resistance, a section of the Police Force’s staff failed to show up for duty on various pretexts and failed to resist the terrorist organisation and engaged in acts to break the resolve and courage of resisting citizens and law-enforcement officials.’

PILOTS DISOBEY ORDERS – DID NOT TAKE OFF IN THE HELICOPTERS
 
It is stated in the indictment that the pilots on the Police General Directorate’s permanent staff Tolga G. and Ender K., along with the contractual pilot Mehmet Barış A. did not comply with the orders given to take the special operations team assigned to protect President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the Huber Mansion during the coup attempt and asked for written orders to take off in the helicopters while the coup attempt was in progress. The comments that through this conduct by the police officers ‘They made it clear that they would quite simply heed the armed terrorist organisation’s orders, and not the legal public hierarchy’ are included in the indictment

WHATSAPP MESSAGE ALSO FINDS ITS WAY INTO THE INDICTMENT
 
It is stated in the indictment that a police officer named İshak E. also put up a photograph of a soldier in his WhatsApp group and posted, ‘Do you know the meaning of this? Get your camouflages ready, tomorrow we’ll be soldiers,’ and he also asked certain police officers to go to the homes of citizens who were resisting the coup.