Supreme Court

The 13th Istanbul High Criminal Court ruled June 23 for the retrial of several convicted suspects, including Fenerbahçe’s outspoken chairman Aziz Yıldırım, in the match-fixing case that had shaken the country’s football scene.

The Chief Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court of Appeals ruled on June 20 to release Hanefi Avcı, a former police chief who was
sentenced to 15 years in jail for a book he wrote.

Former chief of the Turkish General Staff retired Gen Hilmi Özkök has expressed readiness to testify if summoned in the retrial of the Balyoz coup plot case after Turkey’s top court’s ruling

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has suggested the top court’s Balyoz ruling has proven their party right, as they have constantly criticized the judicial process related to the case from the very beginning.

Laid off cleaning staff from the Finance Ministry staged a protest Thursday outside the headquarters of Greek coalition leaders New Democracy on Syngrou Avenue in Athens.

Protesters, who had tied nooses around their necks in a symbolic gesture, shouted slogans against their dismissal and briefly blocked the entrance to the offices of the conservative party.

Turkey’s top court has delivered a landmark ruling, deciding that the rights of a majority of the convicted suspects in the Balyoz (Sledgehammer) coup plot case have been violated, thus paving the way for a retrial.

An internal police inquiry has been launched into the actions of a riot officer accused of hitting a woman protesting her dismissal from the Greek Finance Ministry's cleaning staff on Thursday.

The unnamed officer was allegedly wearing a lined glove that is not standard police issue when he pushed one of the protesting cleaning women to the ground.

The Supreme Court has put on hold the ruling by a lower court ordering the Greek Finance Ministry to rehire about 400 sacked cleaners.

The ministry had sought a temporary suspension of last month’s First Instance Court decision, which ruled that the government was wrong to dismiss the workers as part of public sector reforms.

Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals has overturned an aggravated life sentence given to sociologist Pınar Selek, who was convicted for allegedly being involved in the bombing of Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar in 1998.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide by Thursday whether the Finance Ministry will be able to temporarily ignore a ruling from a lower court ordering it to rehire some 400 sacked cleaners.

The ministry is seeking a temporary suspension of last month’s First Instance Court decision, which ruled that the government was wrong to dismiss the workers as part of public sector reforms.