The tomb at the center belongs to Adnan Menderes, a former Turkish prime minister who was ousted by a military junta in 1960 and executed a year later, along with his foreign and finance ministers.

One of the darkest days in Turkey's history came May 27, 1960, when a military junta toppled the elected government of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. Menderes was the first democratically-elected ...

The story dates back to the 1950s, the era of Turkey’s first freely elected prime minister Adnan Menderes, but the parallels with today — and the current leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan — are clear.