Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said he would hang the suspects of a botched coup attempt in July 2016 in one month, complaining that coup trials were languishing due to the legal system, the Cumhuriyet daily reported on Monday.
Yıldırım responded to the questions of media representatives during a live broadcast on the Habertürk, TRT Haber, NTV, CNN Türk and A Haber television channels.
Referring to the coup attempt, which, according to the Turkish government, was organized by the Gülen movement, Yıldırım said he would not wait long to punish the suspects.
“The courts are giving the verdict, but if it was left to me I would hang them all in a month. The legal system is dragging this out. People are becoming annoyed. Trust in the judiciary is decreasing as the decision is prolonged. It should not be. The case has become mature enough, their hopes will fade away by the end of the year. … There are around 50,400 people under arrest and just as many have been released on judicial probation.”
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
Turkey’s Justice Ministry announced on July 13 that 50,510 people have been arrested and 169,013 have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup.
According to a tally by TurkeyPurge.com, over 146,000 people, including some 10,000 soldiers, have been dismissed from government jobs, more than 122,00 detained and almost 57,000 arrested over coup charges.