The Greek General Council of State has rejected the Greek government’s appeal against the asylum of one of the eight Turkish soldiers who fled to Greece after the controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
The council, supreme administrative court of Greece, made its decision on Süleyman Özkaynakçı’s case on Tuesday, setting a precedent for the cases of other Turkish soldiers.
A Greek asylum committee had decided to grant asylum to Uğur Uçan in June after the Council of State also granted soldiers Özkaynakçı and Ahmet Güzel asylum in May this year.
A few hours after the controversial coup, eight ex-military personnel had arrived in Greece on a Black Hawk helicopter and requested asylum. Turkish government immediately issued an extradition request, which was eventually declined by the Supreme Court in January 2017, after a series of trials and appeals.
Özkaynakçı, the Turkish serviceman who piloted the helicopter, may also receive travel documents to leave Greece. According to the reasoning for granting asylum by the Greek Council of State that was officially published on Tuesday, travel documents can be given with the consent of the Greek state. However, in order to make use of them, the Turkish soldier will have to be accepted by the country he wants to travel to first.
In its ruling Greece’s highest administrative court said that there was no evidence linking Özkaynakçı to either the coup plotters or the Gülen movement. The ruling made also reference to the Turkish pilot’s statement that he has embraced Western values and that he was a secularist.
The ruling refers to Özkaynakçı only, the rest seven servicemen will have to wait for individual rulings by the same court. Ever since the beginning of summer, Özkaynakçı, and the other seven Turkish soldiers are free, however, they remain under tight security measures for their protection as Islamist Turkish government has often abducted its own citizens from foreign countries. Thus three out of the eight Turkish soldiers in Greece have received refugee status.
Turkish government reacted to the ruling with anger. “Judicial decisions that defend the putschists mean support for the putsch. The Greek judiciary has sided with the enemies of Turkey and putschists with this decision,” the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesman Ömer Çelik said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We will never forget those who support terrorists with weapons and those who support them by judicial decisions,” Çelik said. “The judiciary’s decision to protect coup plotters in Greece, which itself suffered from coups in the past, shows that the law has been set aside,” he said, claiming that the Greek judiciary had taken its decision for “other purposes.”.
The eight former Turkish soldiers—three majors, three captains and two sergeant majors—flew to Greece by helicopter on July 16, 2016 as the coup attempt crumbled. Greece has so far rejected three extradition requests submitted by Turkey.
The post Greek Supreme Court rules to not overturn Turkish soldier’s asylum appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/greek-supreme-court-rules-to-not-overturn-turkish-soldiers-asylum/
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