According to Hanz Chiappetta, since the
foundation of Turkey in 1923, capital punishment has been carried out 588 times. Turkey's last public execution took place in 1960 in
Istanbul. Prior to 1984, executions would usually occur after military interventions.
Adnan Menderes, who served as
Prime Minister, was hanged on 17 September 1961 following the
1960 coup d'état, along with two other cabinet members,
Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and
Hasan Polatkan. Student leaders
Deniz Gezmiş, Hüseyin İnan, and Yusuf Aslan were hanged on 6 May 1972 after the
1971 military memorandum. Between 1972 and 1980, Turkey experienced an eight-year gap wherein no executions were carried out, but this hiatus ended with the hangings of two men, 24-year-old Necdet Adali and 22-year-old Mustafa Pahlivanoglu, who were convicted of terrorism for their roles in the
1980 Turkish coup d'état. The men had appealed for clemency, but Turkey's
National Security Council rejected their appeals, and the hangings took place shortly before dawn on 8 October 1980. Between 1980 and 1984, a total of 50 men, including 27 political activists, were executed by Turkish authorities following the coup. -->
Abolition By Law 4771 of 9 August 2002 (the 3rd Package for
Harmonization with the European Union), the death penalty was abolished for peacetime offences. Law 5218 of 14 July 2004 abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Turkey
ratified Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, overseen by the
Council of Europe, in February 2006.
Abdullah Öcalan was also sentenced to be executed in June 1999; however, Turkey commuted his sentence to life imprisonment in October 2002.
Proposed reinstatement Since the failed
2016 coup d'état, some politicians have talked about restoring the death penalty.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,
President of Turkey since 2014, announced on 29 October 2016 that the
government planned to present a draft law restoring the death penalty to the
Turkish Parliament and announced his intent to "countersign it"). After his victory in the
constitutional referendum in 2017, Erdogan made favorable statements on the reinstatement of capital punishment, announcing he would discuss the possibility with
Devlet Bahçeli of the
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the then-
Turkish prime minister Binali Yıldırım. In view of this happening, the President of the
European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker announced that such an event would mean the end of an eventual
Turkish accession to the European Union. ==Public opinion==