Nearly 2,000 people have been sentenced to life in prison since the July 2016 attempted overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish state media reports.
State news agency Anadolu says some 1,934 suspects have been told by the courts that they will spend the rest of their life in jail.
Of these, 978 people were jailed for life, Anadolu reports, while 956 were sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment, which has replaced the death penalty in Turkey and carries harsher conditions than normal life imprisonment convictions.
A total of 239 out of 289 cases opened after the failed coup have been closed. The remaining 50 include 18 in Ankara and nine in Istanbul, Anadolu adds.
Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, sits at his residence in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania in 2014 (AP Photo/Selahattin Sevi, File)
Ankara accuses the US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen of ordering the 2016 coup attempt and refers to his movement as the “Fethullah Terrorist Organization.”
Gulen strenuously denies Turkey’s claims and followers insist his movement promotes peace and secular education, ridiculing the description of themselves as a terror group.
More than 3,050 people in all have been convicted over links to Gulen, with 1,123 given different jail sentences ranging from over a year to 20 years in prison.
— AFP
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