Turkey’s Supreme Criminal Court has sentenced three former judges at the Supreme Court of Appeals to almost 13 months in prison each for “repeated abuse of public office,” Turkish Minute reported.
The ruling was issued in a case involving five former high-ranking judges accused of issuing rulings under the influence of the faith-based Gülen movement, which the Turkish government designates as a terrorist organization.
The judges were accused of misconduct during the Sledgehammer (Balyoz) military coup trial.
The plot, revealed in 2010 by the now-defunct Taraf newspaper, allegedly involved military officers planning drastic measures to destabilize the country and overthrow the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). More than 300 military members including former generals were tried as part of the trial and given lengthy sentences.
The trial took place in the Grand Chamber of the Constitutional Court, which serves as the Supreme Criminal Court when trying high court judges, members of the Cabinet, the president or the vice president.
One of the defendants, Ahmet Toker, attended the hearing via video link from prison, where he is being held on unrelated charges. The other defendants — Ekrem Ertuğrul, Abdurrahman Kavun and Hamza Yaman — were present in the courtroom.
Constitutional Court President Kadir Özkaya presided over the hearing. Retired Lt. Gen. Bekir Memiş, a complainant in the case, testified that the defendants acted under the direction of the Gülen movement and said he had suffered personal harm as a result.
The court acquitted Ertuğrul, citing a lack of evidence. The case file for Fikriye Şentürk, another defendant whose arrest warrant has not been executed, was separated from the proceedings.
The defendants denied the charges and requested an acquittal.
Toker, Kavun and Yaman were convicted of a continuous abuse of office, a charge stemming from their roles in the original Sledgehammer rulings.
Over the last decade Turkish-Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who died last October, and his movement, which in the past had been praised by the Turkish government for their activities in education and interreligious and intercultural dialogue, have faced various accusations from the government, including masterminding corruption investigations in 2013 and a coup attempt in July 2016.
The Turkish government labeled Gülen and his movement as “terrorists” in May 2016.
Gülen and his followers have strongly denied any involvement in the coup or any terrorist activities but have been the subject of a harsh crackdown for a decade, which intensified in the aftermath of the abortive putsch.
As part of the crackdown, more than 4,000 judges and prosecutors were fired on accusations that they were linked to the Gülen movement.
The Sledgehammer trial spanned more than 15 years, beginning with the 2010 revelation of an alleged 2003 military coup plot aimed at toppling the AKP. In 2012 hundreds of military officers were convicted, but the Constitutional Court overturned the verdicts in 2014, citing violations of the right to a fair trial. A 2015 retrial led to widespread acquittals, although prosecutors continued to pursue a handful of cases. In 2021 Turkey’s top appeals court partially reversed those acquittals, leading to new prison sentences in 2023. The legal process concluded in April 2025, when the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the convictions of six retired officers, bringing one of Turkey’s most politically charged trials to a close.
Although the AKP strongly supported the Sledgehammer trial in its early stages, describing it as part of a broader effort to curb military influence in politics, it later distanced itself from the proceedings.
Following the launch of its war on the Gülen movement, the government claimed the trial was orchestrated by pro-Gülen figures as part of a broader plot to undermine the military, a claim denied by the movement.
