Turkey Tries 47 Ex-Soldiers in Erdogan Assassination Plot<br />"For the first time in our history, it is discussed<br />that a commander in chief, a president, was subject to an assassination attempt by Turkish Army members," Mr. Aydin told reporters outside the chamber of commerce, the semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported.<br />An earlier version of this article misstated the location where Huseyin Aydin said, "For the first time in our history, it is discussed<br />that a commander in chief, a president, was subject to an assassination attempt by Turkish Army members." He was speaking to reporters outside the chamber of commerce, not at the hearing.<br />20, 2017<br />IZMIR, Turkey — Dozens of former Turkish soldiers were brought to trial on Monday on charges of trying to kill<br />President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a coup attempt in July, the latest in a series of trials in the plot.<br />Hundreds of rebel soldiers accused of involvement in the coup attempt have been tried in several cases across Turkey in recent months,<br />but this is the first trial to focus on the attempted assassination of Mr. Erdogan.<br />Turkey has blamed followers of Fethullah Gulen, an American-based cleric and former ally of Mr. Erdogan, for the coup attempt.<br />In court on Monday, one of the defendants, Gokhan Sonmezates, acknowledged involvement in the operation but denied<br />that he or the others were trying to kill the president or that they had connections to Mr. Gulen, Reuters reported.<br />Prosecutors in Mugla, a city in the southwest, sought life sentences for 47 former soldiers who officials<br />say tried to assassinate Mr. Erdogan on July 15 during his vacation on the Mediterranean coast.
