Trial opens in Turkey against 221 suspected coup instigators

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The trial has opened in Turkey’s capital against the alleged instigators of last summer’s failed military coup.

A total of 221 people, including 27 ex-generals, went on trial on Ankara’s outskirts Monday at a courthouse built especially to try suspects of the failed July 15 uprising. They face life imprisonment.

The suspects were forced to march along a lane to the courthouse, as pro-government protesters called for the death penalty to be reinstated.

The main defendants are Gen. Akin Ozturk, a former air force commander, and other alleged members of the so-called Peace at Home Council — a group on whose behalf a coup declaration was read on state television.

Turkey says the coup was orchestrated by followers of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.