TURKEY tr-politics
Prosecutor assigned to probe for Turkey's 1980 coup
ISTANBUL - Daily News with Wires | 4/7/2011 12:00:00 AM |
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has assigned Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Murat Demir to an investigation into the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup.
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has assigned Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Murat Demir to an investigation into the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup.
After the annulment of the constitutional article that banned judicial action against the coup in last year’s referendum, hundreds of criminal complaints were filed in prosecutors’ offices all over the country, only to be pooled at Ankara, for that was where the coup took place.
Demir said Thursday that since there are over a thousand criminal complaints he might have other prosecutors help him on the probe: “Since there are a lot of complaints regarding the Sept. 12 coup, the era’s responsible police, soldiers, administrators and the people who gave the coup order will be evaluated in the scope of the investigation. We will categorize all those. We plan to do a broad survey.”
It was expected the three surviving members of the National Security Council, which consisted of five top generals of 1980 who led the coup, will be prosecuted after the indictment is written. Coup leader and Turkey’s seventh President Kenan Evren claimed he would commit suicide before that would happen when the trial of the coup was discussed in 2009. “I promise in front of my nation that I will not let this matter be dealt with in the courts. I will commit suicide,” he said. Apart from Evren, former Air Forces Commander Tahsin Şahinkaya and former Navy Forces Commander Nejat Tümer are still alive.
“The statute of limitations can only be implemented in the case where a legal process is ongoing. The temporary 15th article is an obstacle to considering the principle of the statute of limitations,” the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, said in a written statement in August 2010 as response to the criticisms regarding the statute of limitations were over.
However, the statement added the judiciary would be able to decide who could be tried if the temporary article was removed as a result of the approval of the constitutional amendments on Sept. 12 of last year. “What is certain, however, is that the obstacle to prosecuting [the coup plotters] will be removed.”