A Turkish court has sentenced 104 former military officers to life in prison for their involvement in a 2016 coup attempt, state media report.
They were given “aggravated life sentences,” which come with tougher terms than a normal life sentence.
The failed coup to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan left at least 260 dead and 2,200 injured on July 15, 2016.
The Turkish government has since led a crackdown on alleged coup supporters, with the dismissal of more than 150,000 state employees and the arrest of some 50,000 people.
Sitting in Izmir in western Turkey, the court also gave 21 people 20 years in prison for “assisting the assassination of the president,” while 31 others were sentenced to between seven and 11 years for “membership of a terrorist organisation”, state news agency Anadolu reported.
President Erdogan had backed reintroduction of the death penalty for coup plotters. He also said they should wear Guantanamo Bay-style uniforms. Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004.
The Turkish authorities accused a movement loyal to the Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen of organising the 2016 plot.
Mr. Gulen, who has been in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999, denies any involvement, and Washington has so far resisted calls from the Turkish authorities to extradite him.
- Trump-Kim summit in play as Moon visits White House
President of the United States, Donald Trump, holds a high-stakes meeting with South Korea’s president at the White House Tuesday, talks that could decide whether the US president’s much-vaunted summit with the North’s leader Kim Jong Un goes ahead.
Moon Jae-in is in Washington on a mission to salvage a rare diplomatic opening between the US and North Korea that is in trouble almost before it begins.
Trump had agreed to meet inscrutable “Supreme Leader” Kim in Singapore on June 12, but the first-ever US-North Korea summit is now in serious doubt, with both sides expressing reservations.
South Korea — worried about Kim’s bellicose weapons testing and Trump’s similarly bellicose warnings about a looming war — was instrumental in convincing the two Cold War foes to sit down and talk.
Moon sent his own national security advisor to the White House in March, carrying an offer of talks and word that North Korea may be willing to abandon nuclear weapons, an enticing prospect.
Trump surprised his guests, his own aides and the world by summarily accepting the meeting, seeing an opportunity to “do a deal” and avoid military confrontation.
Pyongyang is on the verge of marrying nuclear and missile technology allowing it to hit the continental United States with a nuke, a capability Washington sees as wholly unacceptable.
- Former Malaysian PM Najib questioned by anti-graft agency
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was questioned early today by anti-corruption police about a graft scandal that could lead to criminal charges against him.
He was summoned nearly two weeks after the defeat of his long-ruling coalition in national elections, a loss partly due to public anger over alleged corruption at the 1MDB state investment fund that Najib set up.
U.S. investigators say Najib’s associates stole and laundered $4.5 billion from the fund, some of which landed in Najib’s bank account.
Najib has denied any wrongdoing since the scandal erupted in 2015. He sacked critics in his government, including a deputy prime minister and the attorney-general, and muzzled the media to try to survive the fallout.
Najib and his wife have been barred from leaving the country after the new government reopened an investigation into the case.
Police have raided his home and other properties linked to him, seizing hundreds of expensive designer handbags and luggage stuffed with cash, jewelry and other valuables.
Najib’s questioning at the anti-graft agency was specifically over why 42 million ringgit ($10.6 million) was transferred into his bank account from SRC International, a unit of 1MDB, using multiple intermediary companies.
- Australian court convicts archbishop for concealing child sex abuse
An Australian archbishop has been found guilty of concealing child sex abuse by a priest, which Australian media said made him the most senior Catholic in the world to be convicted on such a charge.
Philip Wilson, the archbishop of Adelaide, is expected to be sentenced by the court in June. He faces a maximum penalty of two years in jail.
He was accused of covering up a serious indictable offense by another priest, James Fletcher, after being told about it in 1976 when he was an assistant parish priest in the state of New South Wales.
Lawyers for Wilson, 67, had argued that he did not know that Fletcher had abused a boy, Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) reported.
Fletcher was found guilty in 2004 of nine counts of child sexual abuse and died in jail in 2006.
Reports said Magistrate Robert Stone ruled the “offense proven.” Stone said he did not accept that Wilson could not remember a conversation in 1976 in which the victim, who would have been 15 at the time, had described how he was abused by Fletcher a few years earlier, the broadcaster reported.
“I am obviously disappointed at the decision published today,” Wilson said in an emailed statement to media. Wilson had maintained his innocence throughout the judicial process.
- Foreign media head to North Korea to witness nuclear site shutdown
A group of roughly two dozen journalists from Western and Chinese news organizations departed for North Korea Tuesday to witness the closure of its nuclear test site.
Journalists from the Associated Press, CNN, CBS, Russia Today and Chinese state media outlets were among those headed to North Korea, according to agency reports.
Numerous other news organizations, including Reuters, had also sought to cover the shutdown of the North’s nuclear test site but were denied invitations to visit the country.
Pyongyang invited a handful of international media to witness the dismantling of the Punggye-ri site some time between May 23 and May 25 but not technical experts, even though the United States has called for “a permanent and irreversible closure that can be inspected and fully accounted for.”
Diplomatically isolated North Korea, under U.N. Security Council sanctions for its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, announced the planned shutdown of its nuclear test site amid a dramatic round of contact with its long-time bitter rivals, South Korea and the United States.