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Dündar received a sentence of 18 years and nine months for espionage on Wednesday. The court also sentenced him to eight years and nine months in prison for terrorist support.
According to Dündar’s lawyers, the prosecutor had demanded 35 years in prison. The lawyers boycotted the trial in protest. They justified the decision by saying that they did not want to legitimize a trial that had been politically decided by the head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan did not like the newspaper report
The background to the process is a 2015 newspaper report, in which the newspaper “Cumhuriyet” published secret information that supposedly would prove the government’s arms deliveries to rebels in Syria. At the time, Dündar was editor-in-chief of “Cumhuriyet”.
Turkey is regularly criticized for its systematic restriction of press freedom. Currently, the country ranks only 154th on the “Reporters Without Borders” (ROG) press freedom list.
