İstanbul Bar Association officials refuse to testify in coup case probe

İstanbul Bar Association head Ümit Kocasakal and 10 other top bar officials were called to testify as suspects by the Silivri Prosecutor's Office on Thursday after the İstanbul 10th High Criminal Court filed criminal complaints against bar association officials who refused to provide defendants with lawyers in an ongoing case into an alleged coup plot, dubbed “Sledgehammer (Balyoz).”  The court has also filed criminal complaints against defense lawyers who refused to attend hearings in protest of the court's decisions.

Lawyers representing the Sledgehammer suspects have been refusing to attend hearings in protest of the court's refusal to examine all digital recordings or hear from a number of witnesses. The İstanbul Bar Association said in a statement released on Friday that none of the officials will comply with the prosecutor's call as they “will not surrender to unlawfulness.”