Seventy-one former students of Turkish military schools sentenced to life for their involvement in the July 2016 failed coup have been freed following a ruling by the Court of Cassation, media reported on Wednesday turkish.
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355 military students were arrested following the failed putsch against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which was followed by extensive purges within the armed forces.
Imprisoned since, they had been sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Turkish Court of Cassation on Tuesday quashed the conviction of 116 of them, ordering the release of 71 detainees, confirmed to AFP Cemil Cicek, a lawyer who is following the case closely.
The appeals concerning the other detained former students are still pending.
Their relatives have protested for years against their detention, saying that the military students had no way to oppose the orders received.
“
They had been convicted on the basis of empty files.
Their innocence was finally proven, but six years of their life were stolen
,” opposition MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioglu told AFP, who regularly spoke about their fate in parliament.
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The coup attempt that took place on the night of July 15 to 16, 2016 officially killed 251 people, excluding putschists, and injured more than 2,000.
The event gave rise to major purges and led President Erdogan to expand his powers.
Courts have so far convicted 4,891 people in connection with the failed coup, handing down life sentences to nearly 3,000 of them, according to official figures.
