WordBulletin

World Bulletin / News Desk

Leader of the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup and former President Kenan Evren has told his doctors to stop making efforts to improve his health and to allow him to him die, media reports said on Friday.

Evren, 94, is currently hospitalized at Ankara University's Faculty of Medicine. He reportedly told doctors: “Why are you wasting time on me? Let me die.”

Evren and retired Gen. Tahsin Şahinkaya, 86, were recently referred to hospitals to see whether there is any medical obstacle that would prevent them from attending the hearings of the coup trial, which began in April.

Evren and Şahinkaya are standing trial on charges of perpetrating a military coup in the Sept. 12 coup case but have not attended the hearings due to health complaints.

The Sept. 12, 1980 military coup was the bloodiest and most wide-reaching in the history of Turkey. A total of 650,000 people were detained and police kept files on 1,683,000 individuals. A total of 230,000 people were tried in 210,000 cases during the coup period, mostly for political reasons. A further 517 were sentenced to death out of 7,000 people who faced charges that carried a possible death sentence. Of those who received the death penalty, 50 were executed. Another 299 people died while in police custody as a result of unsanitary living conditions and torture.