A Turkish court on Wednesday 23 December sentenced exiled opposition journalist Can Dündar, who became the bête noire of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to more than 27 years in prison after revealing arms deliveries from Ankara to Islamist groups in Syria .
Can Dündar, who lives in exile in Germany, was found guilty of aiding a terrorist group and of espionage for having published in 2015 an investigation, with supporting images, into these arms deliveries by the Turkish secret services , in the opposition daily Cumhuriyet of which he was the editor-in-chief.
In May 2016, Can Dündar, 59, was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison for disclosing state secrets in the affair which angered President Erdogan, whose country supports opposition groups. Syrian party against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
But that verdict was overturned in 2018 by a high court which ordered a new trial against Can Dündar on espionage charges carrying a heavier sentence.
In awaiting the verdict delivered on Wednesday, the court clarified that Can Dündar was sentenced to 18 years and six months in prison for "disclosure of confidential information and espionage" in connection with the publication of the investigation into the deliveries of weapons, and to eight years and nine months in prison for "helping a terrorist organization", in this case the network of preacher Fethullah Gülen.
Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile in the United States, is accused by Ankara of orchestrating the abortive coup against President Erdogan in July 2016.
"Forfeiture of justice"
Can Dündar fled to Germany in 2016 after his first conviction.
"It is a political decision and a vendetta that has nothing to do with the law," Can Dündar reacted by telephone to AFP.
"The aim is also to discourage journalists from publishing this kind of information."
"Erdogan promised to make me pay the price and he is now trying to do it. We are witnessing the downfall of justice in Turkey," he added.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed during a visit to Berlin in September 2018 that he wanted the journalist's extradition, accusing him of being an "agent" who disclosed "state secrets".
In February 2016, President Erdogan violently attacked the Constitutional Court, the country's highest judicial authority, after it ordered the release of Can Dündar while he was on trial, after more than 90 days in detention. provisional.
"It is a senseless and despicable decision which confirms that the regime of President Erdogan does not know how to stop in its flight forward authoritarian", reacted to the verdict Pauline Adès-Mével, editor in chief of RSF who considers that the case de Can Dundar "illustrates in the highest degree the judicial harassment suffered by journalists in Turkey".
"What can we think of a judicial system which condemns journalists to such heavy penalties simply for having done their job?", Asked for his part the secretary general of the European Federation of Journalists Ricardo Gutiérrez.
Violations of press freedom
But the director of communications in the Turkish presidency, Fahrettin Altun, said that "to present Can Dündar as a journalist - and his condemnation as an attack on free expression - is an insult to real journalists".
During his trial, Can Dündar had escaped a gun attack in the Istanbul court.
The author of the shootings had been sentenced to ten months in prison.
In addition to the prison sentence announced Wednesday, the Turkish justice had ordered in October the seizure of the property of Can Dündar and the freezing of his bank accounts.
Cumhuriyet, the oldest daily in Turkey, is not owned by a large business group, but by an independent foundation, making it an easy target for the authorities.
Thus, a Turkish court upheld in November 2019 the sentences, handed down in 2018, of 12 ex-collaborators and leaders of the newspaper to sentences of up to more than eight years in prison for having "helped terrorist groups", namely the network of preacher Gülen and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
In addition to the legal ordeal, Cumhuriyet went through a difficult transition in 2018 with a sudden change in the management team which was accompanied by the departure of the journalists on trial.
Turkey is regularly criticized by NGOs for its attacks on press freedom.
This country occupies 154th place out of 180 in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranking.
With AFP
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