A Turkish court on Monday ordered the formal arrest on terror-related charges of the editor-in-chief for the online edition of opposition daily Cumhuriyet, state media reported.
Oğuz Güven, who was detained on Friday by police in İstanbul, is accused of "spreading propaganda for a terror organisation."
Güven has been formally arrested over a headline and sharing it on social media about the death in a traffic accident last week of senior Turkish prosecutor Mustafa Alper.
The deleted tweet described Alper as having been "mowed down" by a truck, seen by many as an unsavoury choice of words.
In his testimony, Güven reportedly said he did not tweet the report himself, adding that it was “shared completely by mistake” in a bid to break the news urgently. He also noted that the related tweet was deleted 55 seconds after it was shared on Cumhuriyet’s official Twitter account. He said the phrase "mowed down" is often used to describe traffic accidents and was not ill-intentioned.
"We did not aim to commit a crime," Güven said, adding that the article linked to the tweet and other tweets are proof he did not praise a terror organisation.
