A Turkish prosecutor demanded on Thursday a court give a life sentence for jailed Turkish journalist Nazlı Ilıcak (73) in prison for publishing an alleged “confidential document” related to al-Qaeda linked Turkish radical Islamist terror group Tahşiyeciler.
Journalist Ilıcak (73), who is a well-known columnist, TV host, and former parliamentarian, has spent over two years behind bars since her arrest on July 29, 2016, weeks after Turkey was rocked by a controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
Already sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order,” Ilıcak has faced additional charges of alleged espionage during her third hearing in a case at the İstanbul’s 26th High Criminal Court on Thursday.
As veteran journalist Ilıcak attended in her hearing from Bakırköy Women’s Prison in İstanbul via Voice and Image Information System (SEGBİS), the prosecutor, who explained his opinion, requested that Ilıcak be sentenced to life imprisonment over her alleged ‘exposition of the state secrets that must be kept confidential in regard of state’s security, its domestic and foreign interests for the sake of political or military espionage.”
Defending her journalistic activity at the court, journalist Ilıcak stated that “I did not publish any document. I have only made some instructions about the content of a document. I demand more time to prepare my defenses against the claims of the prosecutor.” The court has accepted her demand for more time and postponed the trial.
The documents which were allegedly published by journalist Nazlı Ilıcak are about radical Tahşiyeciler group. The documents have reportedly shown that Turkey’s state institutions associate the Tahsiyeciler Group with the al-Qaeda terror organization. Intelligence document prepared by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), the Chief of the General Staff’s Intelligence Department and the Security Department’s Intelligence Department had revealed close links of Tahşiyeciler with Al-Qaeda.
In January 2018, the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office issued an indictment against Ilıcak, accusing the journalist of “disclosing confidential information crucial to state security for espionage purposes” as per Article 330/1 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) for a newspaper column published on January 2, 2015, in the shuttered Bugün daily, and titled “Askerî İstihbarat ve Tahşiyeciler (The Military Intelligence and Tahşiyeciler).”
Accepting the indictment, the 15th High Criminal Court of Ankara issued a decision of non-jurisdiction and sent the file to İstanbul on grounds that the Bugün daily was headquartered in İstanbul during the time of the alleged crime.
Ilıcak gave her statement before the 26th High Criminal Court of İstanbul on 9 April 2018, at the first hearing of that case, for which she faces life imprisonment.
At the second hearing held on May 23, the prosecutor asked the court to accept a request from the Defense Ministry to join the case as a co-plaintiff. The prosecutor also requested an expansion of the investigation to find out if Ilıcak talked or wrote about the content of the article in question on television programs, newspapers or social media.
Ilıcak, who addressed the court through video-conferencing system SEGBİS from the Bakırköy Prison, objected to the prosecutor’s request for expansion of the investigation, saying that whether an article was used by social media users or other media outlets was not up to the writer of that article. She and her lawyers said the case must be dropped given that the Press Law limits the period of time when a court case can be brought against an article published in the press to four months.
In its interim ruling, the court ruled to allow the Defense Ministry to join the case as a co-plaintiff and accepted the prosecutor’s request for expansion of the investigation. The next hearing in the case will be held on September 6. Ilıcak is currently imprisoned at Bakırköy Women’s Prison in İstanbul.
Turkey became acquainted with Tahşiyeciler in 2009 when police raided cells operated by the radical Islamist group and found caches of weapons and arms in safe houses. Many of its members were arrested, charged and tried.
The government led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan helped extricate the group from legal troubles in 2014 when Mehmet Doğan, the leader of the group, was vouched for by President Erdoğan. At the invitation of the government several members of this radical group filed a complaint against the police chiefs and prosecutors who investigated the al-Qaeda-linked group and journalists who wrote critically about it.
In July 2014, based on these complaints, the Erdoğan government arrested 76 top police inspectors who were involved in investigating this radical group and were uncovering the corruption network in which Erdoğan and his associates were incriminated.
Hidayet Karaca, a journalist who headed the critical Samanyolu TV network, was also arrested for discrediting the al-Qaeda militants. When the unlawful arrests were challenged due to a lack of evidence, judges Metin Özçelik and Mustafa Başer ruled for their release in April 2015, citing the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). But the Erdoğan government did not enforce the judgment and instead dismissed Özçelik and Başer, who were later arrested on fabricated terrorism charges.
Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 237 journalists and media workers were in jail as of September 6, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 169 were under arrest pending trial while only 68 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 147 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down some 200 media outlets, including Kurdish news agencies and newspapers, after a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.
The post Turkish prosecutor demands life sentence for journalist Ilıcak over exposing documents on radical group appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-prosecutor-demands-life-sentence-for-journalist-ilicak-over-exposing-documents-on-radical-group/
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder