Turkish coup general denies role in torture of thousands

PanARMENIAN.Net - A retired Turkish general who seized power in 1980 denied on Wednesday, November 21 any role in the torture of thousands of people after a coup that his co-defendant said saved the nation from chaos, Reuters said.

Kenan Evren, who led a military regime under which thousands were tortured, hundreds sentenced to death and many more disappeared, was speaking by video link from his hospital bed in a trial that highlights the erosion of army power within Turkey.

In an interim judgment, the judge said only questions about coup charges could be made during the proceedings, while the issue of systematic torture was not a matter for the trial, drawing a response from Evren.

"We had nothing to do with torture," said the former president.

The 1980 military takeover, Turkey's third in 20 years, in which virtually the entire political class was rounded up and interned, still haunts the nation. The government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is in the process of revising an authoritarian constitution inherited from army rule, according to Reuters.

The other defendant, retired air force commander General Tahsin Sahinkaya also spoke by video link from hospital.

"The armed forces fulfilled their duty to the Turkish nation," he said in a strong voice. "The National Security Council at the time had acted within the constitution."

Victims' lawyers say the generals should be treated no differently to former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. Both were forced to appear in court, one on a bed behind bars, the other in a wheelchair.