Turkey court demands graver charge, longer jail for top journalist

ANKARA: Turkey’s top appeals court on Friday quashed the verdict of leading Turkish journalist Can Dundar who was sentenced to jail in 2016, saying that he should face an even more serious charge and a longer prison term of up to 20 years. Dundar, former editor-in-chief of leading opposition daily Cumhuriyet, was in May 2016 sentenced to five years and 10 months jail while the paper’s Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul was given five years. They were convicted by an Istanbul court of revealing state secrets over a story accusing the government of seeking to illicitly deliver arms bound for Syria. But Turkey’s Court of Cassation, known as the Yargitay, ruled that Dundar should go on trial on far more serious charges of “providing information for the purpose of espionage”, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported This would see him face a jail term of between 15-20 years, it said. The Istanbul court had in 2016 acquitted both men of espionage charges.