Türkiye next Monday will mark the eighth anniversary of a coup attempt that killed 252 people and injured 2,735 others. A rare instance of public resistance to putschists associated with the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ) quelled the bloody bid, and Türkiye now fights perpetrators of attempts in courtrooms.

A nongovernmental organization (NGO) monitoring the trials says courts issued verdicts for 8,725 defendants in 289 trials while verdicts in some trials are now before higher courts, including the Supreme Court of Appeals, as part of a lengthy appeal process.

Mehmet Alagöz, head of the July 15 Coup Trials Platform, told reporters on Monday that courts handed down aggravated lifetime imprisonment for 1,634 defendants in trials while another 1,336 people were sentenced to life. A total of 1,891 defendants received lesser prison terms, while 2,870 defendants were acquitted. Another 964 defendants benefited from non-prosecution.

"Our nation stood for its homeland on the night of July 15. We will not leave them alone in those trials," Alagöz said.

The coup attempt was unique in many aspects for Türkiye, whose democratic history was stained with major coups since 1960. For the first time, the nation braved putschists and a semi-passive resistance, ranging from unarmed people standing in the way of tanks to drivers parking their trucks on the roads to block a military convoy of putschists. Their resistance succeeded in staving off the attempt. Until the early hours of July 16, 2016, people in every city and town showed strong resistance to the surprise of putschists, who had expected an easy takeover.

FETÖ, which posed under the guise of a religious movement for decades, recruiting the youth to its ranks with the ultimate goal of seizing control of Türkiye, was already under investigation when the 2016 coup attempt took place. It first tried to topple the elected government in late 2013, but this attempt (through a false anti-graft probe targeting government officials launched by pro-FETÖ prosecutors and police) failed. The government was preparing to weed out suspected infiltrators of FETÖ from the army in August 2016 before they moved to seize power.

Investigations after the coup attempt have uncovered communication between members of FETÖ, from "civilian" members to military officers loyal to the group for planning the attempt. The group's leader, Fetullah Gülen, known for his cryptic messages to his followers, had also called on them to stage a coup in a speech in March 2016, further investigation revealed.

Alagöz said some 9,000 military personnel loyal to FETÖ took part in the coup attempt, and it was only through attempts of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the government and the public that the putschists were stopped.

He said at a news conference in Istanbul that all trials related to the actions of the putschists during the coup attempt concluded, though some additional lawsuits were filed later based on new evidence uncovered long after the putsch bid. He also pointed out that trials for defendants at large also continued. Trials were held in 58 provinces across the country, which were affected most by the putsch attempt. Alagöz said the courts handled 293 trials related to the attempt at first, adding new developments and appeals to the sentences by higher courts, which brought the number of cases included in trials to more than 400 later.

In Istanbul, where most of the nation first found out about the coup attempt after putschists took over a key bridge, courts issued verdicts for 2,423 defendants, while this number was 3,460 in the capital, Ankara, which was at the heart of the coup attempt. In Istanbul, 382 defendants were sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment, while this number was 927 in Ankara. Alagöz said 269 coup attempt trials were now before the Supreme Court and the Court upheld verdicts in 195 trials.

Although most military officers who took part in the coup bid were sentenced, the "civilian" members of FETÖ remain more elusive. Only a few were caught red-handed during the attempt, including executives and staff of a FETÖ-linked company who were apparently helping the putschists since they were caught at the Akıncı base when the attempt was quelled. Akıncı in Ankara was the "command center" of the coup attempt and shut down after the putsch was thwarted. They were sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment, but Adil Öksüz, the alleged mastermind of the coup bid on behalf of ringleader Fetullah Gülen, remains at large. Öksüz, originally a theology lecturer, was also captured at the same base, but a court released him shortly after in a controversial decision. Since then, he has disappeared and is believed to be abroad.

As for Gülen, the terrorist group's leader continues his life uninterrupted in a posh residence in Pennsylvania in the United States. One of the most wanted men in Türkiye, he is the main defendant in a myriad of trials on FETÖ's wrongdoings, including the 2016 coup bid. Yet, the U.S. has so far dragged its feet extraditing him, despite multiple requests by Ankara. A frail Gülen reportedly left his Pennsylvania compound recently, while some claimed he was taken to an unknown location in the U.S. amid infighting within FETÖ.