Turkish judicial authorities have postponed an appeal hearing against the imprisonment on remand of the two Greek soldiers arrested last week. “The hearing will take place some time this week,” the lawyers of the two Greeks said. They had applied for the clients’ release from Edirne prison early on Monday.
According to state broadcaster ERT, Turkish authorities remanded custody for the two Greek soldiers “because they have no residence in Turkey and therefore they could flee the country.”
The Greek side has proposed that the two Soliders are released and transferred to the premises of the Greek consulate in Edirne (Adrianoupolis.)
However, according to latest information arriving from Turkey around 3 p.m. Monday, the judge have rejected the release request.
Ankara obviously wants to take advantage of the case and use it politically. It looks as if the issue will not be solved as soon as Athens had hoped, and the soldiers are at risk to stay longer in custody.
It is up to the judge to determine the date of the trial. With the Turkish purge underway, this could turn into a long procedure.
The procedure is the prosecutor sends the case file to the court, the judge decides whether to accept it or not. If accepted, he has to determine the date of the trial.
According to KTG information, the trial could take place after a month, the earliest.
KTG understands that the prosecutor has yet to send the file to court.
Earlier on Monday, the soldiers’ parents were allowed to visit them in prison.
The court in Edirne had remanded custody on Friday and this was valid until Monday, when it was expected that they would stand trial. Apparently Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided otherwise when the returned home on Sunday, after an Africa tour.
Greek Foreign Minister, Nikos Kotzias, called on “Turkey to implement the provisions of International Law” and to “not turn a routine procedure into a major legal and political problem between the two countries.”
“The problem in the region is called Turkey,” Kotzias said during a joint press conference with his Cypriot counterpart, Nikos Christodoulidis, in Athens on Monday.
The Greek government, and especially the Defense Ministry are keeping a close eye on developments, hoping that the scenario that will prevail is the one of “immediate release” and a “suspended sentence for illegal entry into a restricted area.”
The bad scenario is the change of indictment and the addition of “espionage charges” as some Turkish media controlled by Ankara suggested.
So far, there has been no change in the indictment, neither an extension of the custody.
But Turkey has proved many times, how predictable in its unpredictable behavior can be.
