16 May 2018•Update: 16 May 2018
By Ekber Turkoglu
TOKAT, Turkey
At least 117 people across Turkey were convicted on Wednesday of being members of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group behind the July 2016 defeated coup.
In the capital Ankara, 85 people were given jail sentences ranging from about two to 13 years at the 23rd Heavy Penal Court, which heard a case against FETO infiltration of the Beytepe Gendarmerie Schools Command.
Zubeyir Oksuz, the cousin of Adil Oksuz, accused of being a mastermind behind the defeated coup, was also given nearly 10 years in prison by the 15th Heavy Penal Court in the Aegean Izmir province.
He was convicted of being a member of an armed terrorist organization.
Three others who appeared before the judge in the same court also got prison sentences ranging from about two to seven years.
In the Black Sea province of Samsun, 13 people got jail terms ranging from six months to 10-and-a-half years.
They were sentenced for attempting to abolish the constitutional order, forming or leading an armed terrorist organization, financing terrorism, and being members of an armed terror group.
In another Black Sea province, Tokat, nine FETO convicts were sentenced to over six years in prison, as part of an investigation of FETO’s police infiltration.
They included former departmental chiefs.
Separately, the Ordu Second High Penal Court sentenced six former police chiefs to over six years in prison for membership in an armed terror group.
FETO and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 250 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.
Ankara 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.
