ZEYNEP BILGINSOY (AP) — A Turkish courtroom has convicted exiled journalist Can Dundar on espionage and terror-related costs for a information report.
The courtroom in Istanbul on Wednesday discovered Dundar responsible of “acquiring secret paperwork for espionage” and “aiding a terrorist group,” sentencing him to a complete of 27 1/2 years in jail.
Dundar, the previous editor-in-chief of opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, was on trial for a 2015 story accusing Turkey’s intelligence service of illegally sending weapons to Syria.
The story included a 2014 video that confirmed males in police uniforms and civilian clothes unscrewing bolts to open the vans and unpacking packing containers. Later photos present vans filled with mortar rounds. The Related Press can’t affirm the authenticity of the video.
The information report claimed that the Turkish intelligence service and Turkey’s president didn’t enable the prosecutor to start an investigation into arms smuggling.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was infuriated by the publication, submitting prison costs in opposition to Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul. Erdogan mentioned the vans carried help to Turkmen teams in Syria and that Dundar would “pay a excessive worth.”
Turkey later interfered instantly within the Syrian civil warfare, launching 4 cross-border operations.
Dundar and Gul have been arrested in 2015 and spent three months in pre-trial detention. In 2016, a courtroom convicted them to 5 to 6 years in jail for “acquiring and revealing secret paperwork for use for espionage.” Dundar was attacked outdoors the courthouse on the identical day as the decision however was unhurt.
After Dundar appealed the conviction, the Supreme Courtroom of Appeals overturned the sentences in 2018 and ordered a retrial with harsher sentences. The retrial started in 2019.
Dundar left for Germany in 2016 and was being tried in absentia. His property in Turkey was within the strategy of being seized.
Dundar is accused of aiding the community of U.S.-based Fethullah Gulen, who the federal government says masterminded Turkey’s 2016 failed coup. The prosecutor who ordered the vans stopped and others, together with army officers, have been charged with hyperlinks to Gulen. Gulen denies the allegations and stays in Pennsylvania.
Reporters With out Borders ranks Turkey at 154 out of 180 nations in its 2020 Press Freedom Index.
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