A Turkish court ruled on July 28 that four prominent members of an opposition newspaper must remain in detention but freed seven others for the duration of the trial.
The court remanded in custody the chairman of Cumhuriyet's executive committee Akın Atalay, its chief editor Murat Sabuncu, columnist Kadri Gürsel and reporter Ahmet Şık, citing the gravity of the charges they face.
The court freed seven others until the next hearing on "judicial probation", meaning they cannot leave the country and must report regularly to a police station. The released journalists and executives were cartoonist Musa Kart, Bülent Utku, books supplement editor Turhan Günay, Önder Çelik, legal executives Kemal Güngör, Hakan Karasinir and Güray Öz.
The next hearing of the case will be on Sept. 11.
The trial in İstanbul of 19 writers, cartoonists and executives from the paper began this week. All of the defendants denied the accusations during five days of hearings this week.
Some of the Cumhuriyet staff members have been in prison for nine months. They face sentences between 7½ and 43 years.
Turkish prosecutors are seeking up to 43 years in jail for newspaper staff accused of targeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan through "asymmetric war methods". They are charged with supporting in the newspaper's writings no less than three groups considered by Turkey as terror outfits -- the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the ultra-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) and Fethullah Gülen's network, one of the masterminds of the last year's coup attempt.
