Former presidential guards among those sentenced over failed Turkish coup

Riot police officers leave a courthouse during the trial of 497 defendants, in Sincan, outside the capital Ankara, Turkey (Burhan Ozbilici/AP)

A Turkish court sentenced dozens of people, including former soldiers attached to the presidential guard regiment, to life imprisonment over their involvement in the 2016 failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

A total of 497 defendants had been on trial since 2017 for attempting to seize the military headquarters in Ankara, occupying the headquarters of the state broadcaster TRT, and of forcing a television broadcaster to read out a statement on behalf of the coup-plotters.