Trial opens in Turkey against 221 suspected coup instigators

The trial has opened in Turkey's capital against the alleged instigators of last summer's failed military coup.
A total of 221 people, including 27 ex-generals, went on trial on Ankara's outskirts today at a courthouse built especially to try suspects of the failed July 15 uprising. They face life imprisonment.
The suspects were forced to march along a lane to the courthouse, as pro-government protesters called for the death penalty to be reinstated.
The main defendants are Gen. Akin Ozturk, a former air force commander, and other alleged members of the so-called Peace at Home Council a group on whose behalf a coup declaration was read on state television.

Turkey says the coup was orchestrated by followers of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.