Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Thursday it protests the Greek Supreme Court decision not to extradite eight former military personnel who escaped to Greece following the failed coup attempt on July 15, which was organized by the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).
The ministry said in a statement, "We are protesting Greece's decision not to extradite the coup soldiers, Greece has put itself in a situation where it protects the coup plotters."
The Istanbul court approved a request from prosecutors for the warrant, shortly after Greece's Supreme Court refused to extradite the former officers sought by Ankara over their role in the coup attempt.
After the July 15 coup attempt, eight soldiers, including two commanders, four captains and two sergeants, had escaped to Greece on a Sikorsky helicopter and landed in Alexandroupolis. Following their landing, the eight suspected FETÖ members asked for asylum from Greek authorities. Before their asylum request was taken to the court, a Greek court sentenced the eight men to a suspended two-month jail sentence for illegal entry into Greece. Ankara has formally requested from Greece the extradition of the FETÖ members who were allegedly behind the coup attempt.
Previously the asylum requests for three soldiers out of the eight were denied by the Greek court. The trio had claimed that they do not share the ideology of FETÖ, arguing instead that they follow the ideology of Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and contended that they had no knowledge of the coup attempt: "We just followed orders," the soldiers said, claiming that they did not flee to Greece on purpose.
