Turkey sentences 74 to life in post-coup case

ANKARA — Seventy four people, including soldiers, were sentenced to life in prison by a Turkish court on Wednesday for their role in an attempted coup, the state-owned Anadolu news agency said.

They were sentenced to aggregated life sentences for “attempting to disrupt the constitutional order”, Anadolu said.

More than 240 people, most of them unarmed civilians, were killed on the night of July 15, 2016, when a group of rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and warplanes in a botched attempt to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey blames US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen for the abortive putsch and has carried out a widespread crackdown on his suspected supporters, detaining some 160,000 people, including academics, soldiers and civil servants.