Former Turkish army chief and president Kenan Evren has died aged 97. Evren was sentenced to life in prison last year for leading a 1980 coup that
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Former Turkish army chief and president Kenan Evren has died aged 97.
Evren was sentenced to life in prison last year for leading a 1980 coup that resulted in widespread torture, arrests and deaths.
He was too frail to attend court and age and sickness spared him from serving time behind bars.
Fifty people were executed, half a million arrested, hundreds died in jail, and many more disappeared in the years after the coup.
Political parties were shut down and Evren went on to serve for seven years as president from 1982.
The coup left Turkey with a constitution drafted by generals and viewed by many to this day as a brake on democratic development in the EU candidate nation.
Evren, who had been receiving treatment at a military hospital in Ankara, is reported to have suffered multiple organ failure as a result of old age and was pronounced dead late on Saturday.