A committee in Athens on Thursday granted asylum to the third of a group of eight Turkish soldiers who fled to Greece in July 2016 following a failed coup attempt aiming to overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. All eight Turkish servicemen seeking asylum in Greece were released from custody on June after their 18-month detention period expired causing Ankara’s fierce reaction, as it has repeatedly requested their extradition in order to face justice.
The eight currently reside in a secret location under heavy police protection, as Turkish officials have expressed threats against their safety. Turkey strongly opposed the Greek Supreme Court’s decision not to extradite the former servicemen on the ground that they would not stand a fair trial in their homeland. Pro-Erdogan statesmen and media have labelled them as “terrorists” and “traitors” allegedly linked with the so-called “Fetullah Terrorist Organization” (FETO) operating under the US-based imam Fetullah Gulen.
The Greek State has previously appealed against the asylum committee’s decisions, although the Council of State, the country’s higher administrative court, ruled in their favor. The asylum applications of the remaining five Turkish nationals are scheduled to be examined within the next days with the decisions expected to be in their favour. The asylum committee is an independent administrative body.
The Turkish soldiers fled to Greece with an army Black Hawk helicopter hours after the coup attempt and landed to the Northeastern city of Alexandroupolis.
Nearly 250 people died and some 2,200 were injured during the coup attempt carried out by a faction of the Turkish Army in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and other major cities on 15 July 2016. Erdogan’s government has since led a crackdown on alleged “coup plotters” and “supporters” of Gulen, with the dismissal of more than 150,000 public workers, state officials, army officers, academics and other state employees while more than 50,000 people have been arrested.
The case has further escalated tensions between Greece and Turkey, which in 1996 came to the brink of war over the status of Imia, two uninhabited islets in Eastern Aegean. The arrest and imprisonment of two Greek servicemen who accidentally strayed into Turkish territory due to bad weather during a routine border patrol on March 1 has also soured ties between the two neighboring countries and NATO allies.
