The trials of Turkey’s legal system
The AKP-Gulen conflict spills over into the retrial of the Ergenekon case.
For foreigners, it must be quite discombobulating trying to understand how two distinctly separate legal battles may end up influencing the outcome of the other. It’s not any easier for locals as well to grasp the moment, but this is Turkey — that is what makes it interesting.
Not long ago, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was proud to assert himself as the “prosecutor” of a series of trials all linked to Ergenekon, defined as a terrorist organization aimed at bringing down his government. More than 200 current and military officers have been convicted and given long prison terms. Until December, Erdogan and his party members were jubilant in their arguments proclaiming how much these trials helped to end the military tutelage in the country and how much it helped to strengthen the country’s democracy.
