Greece becomes an accomplice to Turkey's coup attempt

The Greek High Court has ruled not to extradite eight officers who flew a military helicopter to Greece on the night of the failed coup on July 15, 2016 and demanded political asylum. Rejecting the return of the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) coup plotters, the court based its decision on the grounds that they would be subject to mistreatment in Turkey and that human rights come above other considerations. 

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras stated that the judiciary in Greece is independent and court decisions are binding for everybody. In a sense this reflects his "content" with the ruling. 

It is clear that the ruling of the Greek High Court was not legal but rather political. If the Greek justice system had handled the incident from a purely legal point of view, it would have extradited the eight coup plotting officers to Turkey without hesitation. However, it based its decision mostly on politics and opted to reject the extradition demand. 

Greece thus neglected the extradition agreement between Greece and Turkey once again, as it has done in the past. What's more, it based its ruling in favor of the coup plotters with justifications that it has "incriminating" implications against Turkey. 

Criminal weapon 

The legal case in Greece noted that criminals were caught with their "criminal weapon" - the helicopter they committed the crime with - and turned themselves in. 

Who are these eight officers? What have they done? 

These soldiers attempted to stage a coup in Turkey in July 2016 with the aim of removing the constitutional order and toppling the government, and they have the blood of 241 innocent people on their hands.

They are members of the FETÖ network of U...