Among the convictions that Turkish courts have issued involving the 2016 coup attempt, life sentences handed down to military academy cadets stand out as the most lopsided punishment, given the role the young people played on the night of the putsch.
More than 400 cadets, ages 19-22, remain behind bars over the coup attempt, which Ankara blames on followers of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen, who resides in the United States, denies any involvement.
On May 25, an Istanbul court sentenced 116 Air Force Academy cadets to life for “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order by force and violence.” They were among about 180 cadets who stood trial in the case, including three women.
On the night of July 15, 2016, the Air Force Academy cadets were at a summer training camp in Yalova, not far from Istanbul. They were put on buses en route to Istanbul for what they were told was a military exercise. In the outskirts of the city, crowds of angry civilians out in the streets to resist the putschists had blocked the road and stopped some of the buses, forcing the cadets and their commanders to get off. In the ensuing fracas, most of the cadets refrained from confronting the civilians and surrendered. But there was still a shootout that claimed the lives of four civilians and left 33 people, most of them civilians, injured.
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