MERSIN, Turkey
The public prosecutor's office in Tarsus province has demanded aggravated life imprisonment sentences for four Turkish prosecutors and a gendarmerie officer for their alleged involvement in the Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT) trucks case.
The suspects allegedly violated Turkey’s national security laws in 2014 when they stopped and searched MIT trucks in Adana province that were en route to Syria. The trucks were allegedly loaded with arms and ammunition.
The Tarsus Chief Public Prosecutor's Office prepared and sent an indictment of the five suspects to the Tarsus Second Criminal Court Friday, demanding an aggravated life imprisonment for Adana’s former chief public prosecutor Suleyman Bagriyanik, prosecutors Ozcan Sisman, Aziz Takci and Ahmet Karaca, and Adana's former provincial gendarmerie commander Ozkan Cokay.
The suspects were accused of "attempting to overthrow the Turkish government by using force and violence or attempts to destroy the government's function totally or partly," and "getting intelligence over the politics and security of the state".
Turkey's Interior Ministry at the time denied that the MIT trucks were on a mission to supply arms to groups in northern Syria and said that the trucks in question had in fact been transporting humanitarian aid to the Turkmen community in the war-torn country.
