Turkey's top court says journalist should get harsher sentence

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey's top court on Friday overturned a five-year prison sentence handed down to prominent journalist Can Dundar, saying he should instead face up to 20 years in jail for espionage, the official Anadolu Agency said.

Dundar and a colleague at Cumhuriyet newspaper, Erdem Gul, were both sentenced in 2016 to five years in prison for publishing a video purporting to show Turkish intelligence trucking weapons into Syria. They were later released pending appeal.

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the lower court should have convicted Dundar on espionage-related charges, which carry a sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison, rather than the lesser charge of disclosing confidential information , Anadolu said. He said Gul should be acquitted due to lack of evidence.

After his release, Dundar left Turkey and is currently being tried in absentia. Gul remained in the country and is free while his appeal is pending.

For critics of President Tayyip Erdogan, Dundar has become a symbol of what they see as a sweeping crackdown on press freedom in Turkey, particularly since the failed 2016 coup. Turkish authorities have dismissed or suspended 150,000 people and arrested 50,000 on suspicion of involvement in or support for the coup.

“The real 'espionage' is the secret transfer of weapons to a foreign country. Those who talk about it are journalists,” Dundar tweeted, responding to the announcement of the decision.

Dundar, in London for rehearsals of a play commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company about his life, dismissed the espionage accusations as the latest attempt by the Turkish government to punish him for his critical coverage of Erdogan.

“If there is a crime, it is not me but that of the government,” he told Reuters, adding that he had not yet seen the judgment.

Dundar said his wife, Dilek Dundar, continued to challenge Turkey's ban on her leaving the country, with her case now before Turkey's Constitutional Court.

Last month, Turkey sentenced six more journalists, including two prominent brothers, to life in prison for helping the perpetrators of the failed 2016 coup.

Mehmet Altan, an economics professor and journalist, and his brother Ahmet, also a journalist, were accused of broadcasting coded messages during a television debate the day before the aborted military coup. Nazli Ilicak, another renowned journalist, was also among those sentenced. All six have denied the accusations.

The government says its security measures are necessary given the multiple threats it faces.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Berlin; editing by David Dolan and Gareth Jones)