Turkey court frees journalist Bekir Gökmen Ulu pending trial

A Turkish court ordered the release of a nationalist newspaper journalist accused of links to the group blamed by the government for last year's failed coup
Wednesday, 08 November 2017 22:35

An İstanbul court freed on bail a journalist facing charges of aiding a terrorist organisation after he identified the hotel where President Tayyip Erdoğan was staying hours before the failed military coup in 2016.

İzmir-based journalist Bekir Gökmen Ulu from the nationalist daily Sözcü is one of four staff members from the newspaper who went on trial on Tuesday.

On the night of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, Erdoğan narrowly escaped a team of rogue soldiers who stormed his hotel in a luxury resort in the southwestern Turkish province of Muğla. Forty-two soldiers were found guilty last month of trying to kill him and given life sentences.

Prosecutors say Ulu's newspaper article made Erdoğan a target for the coup plotters by revealing his location.

Two of the other defendants in the case, news editors Mediha Olgun and Yonca Kaleli, had already been allowed to go free while the case was heard. All three remain on trial on charges of "intentionally aiding a terror group" and face up to 15 years each in prison if convicted.

Sözcü founder Burak Akbay, who has left the country and is being tried in absentia, is accused of the more serious charges of "running an armed terror group" and "spreading terror propaganda" and could be imprisoned for up to 30 years. 

An İstanbul prosecutor's office in May issued an arrest warrant for Akbay, who is believed to be abroad.

Akbay, in a statement read to the court, denied he was a supporter of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, who is accused of orchestrating the failed coup.