The controversial trial of staff from Turkey's opposition newspaper resumed on Monday. The second session of hearings is taking place next to the high-security Silivri prison on the outskirts of İstanbul where the men are being held.
The case, which opened in İstanbul in July, involves 17 current and former writers, cartoonists and executives from Cumhuriyet ("Republic"). Those on trial are charged with using their position to support the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the ultra-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), and the Fethullah Gülen network. Once a close ally of Erdogan, U.S.-based Fethullah Gülen is wanted on charges of ordering the failed July coup.
The charges directed at them include “membership of an armed terrorist organisation” and “helping an armed terrorist organisation while not being a member of it.”
On July 28, an İstanbul court freed seven of the newspaper's staff after 271 days, including cartoonist Musa Kart, Bülent Utku, Turan Günay, Önder Çelik, Kemal Güngör, Hakan Karasinir and Güray Öz.
But some of the paper's staff remain in custody, among them commentator Kadri Gürsel, investigative journalist Ahmet Şık, editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu and chief executive Akın Atalay.
Eight other suspects have also been charged but are not being held in prison.
Şık has been behind bars for 255 days while the other three have been jailed for 316 days. If convicted, they face varying terms of up to 43 years in jail. He is the author of an explosive 2011 book called "The Imam's Army" which exposed how followers of Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen infiltrated the Turkish bureaucracy and built ties with the ruling party.
Also on trial, but in absentia, is the paper's former editor-in-chief Can Dündar, who was last year sentenced to five years and 10 months in jail over a front-page story showing the government of sending weapons to Syria. Dündar has now fled Turkey for Germany.
