AFP – Turkish court has charged 13 soldiers who had stopped in January trucks Turkish secret services en route to Syria, calling for each of them to life in prison, said on Thursday the Turkish media.
The 13 men will soon be tried in Adana (south), where the incident occurred, to an as yet undetermined date and the indictment which aims requires life in prison, said the Dogan news agency. The suspects are accused of including “leaking state information for political or espionage,” the agency said.
Teams gendarmerie corps in Turkey, were stopped and searched in Adana, a city near the Syrian border, seven trucks on the basis of information received that they were carrying weapons and ammunition. The authorities stated that the personnel on board consisted of members of the national intelligence agency (MIT), on official mission.
Trucks are left after excavation and the government, very angry, announced they were carrying aid to the Turkmen minority in northern Syria and denied any supply of arms. The soldiers who had intercepted the trucks subsequently relieved of their duties.
The incident intervened in full corruption scandal that has tainted the Islamic-conservative government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan after revelations in mid-December and for which the prime minister accused the Brotherhood preacher Fethullah Gülen have manufactured evidence.
Erdogan has conducted an extensive purge from the judiciary and the police, manipulated, according to him, by the Gülen movement to overthrow him. The power was also passed in Parliament in March a controversial law that gives increased powers at MIT. The new legislation grants including judicial impunity for members of the MIT in the exercise of their functions.
The government in Ankara is a fierce opponent of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and hosts the exiled opposition, but has repeatedly denied having supplied weapons to the insurgents. However, in December, the Turkish media, citing UN documents and the government, said that the country had sent 47 tons of weapons to the rebels since June 2013.