Their sentences upheld by the appeal court, six former Cumhuriyet newspaper staff members sentenced to less than five years in the Cumhuriyet newspaper trial came to Kocaeli judicial complex and were taken to prison following procedures.
Following the upholding by Penal Chamber No 3 of Istanbul Regional Court of Justice of the sentences handed down in the Cumhuriyet newspaper trial, former Cumhuriyet newspaper staffers Hakan Kara, Mustafa Kemal Güngör, Güray Öz, Önder Çelik along with cartoonist Musa Kart and accounting employee Emre İper came to Kocaeli judicial complex for the execution of their sentences. CHP Istanbul MP Sezgin Tanrıkulu, CHP Kocaeli MP Haydar Akar, Workers Party of Turkey Hatay MP Barış Atay, former Cumhuriyet newspaper Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu and former Cumhuriyet newspaper foundation Administrative Board Chair Akın Atalay gave support to the former Cumhuriyet newspaper staffers.
Heading for prison, Hakan Kara noted in his statement in front of the judicial complex, “Somebody called me one year before ByLock had been invented. I am accused of this. Now I am to go to jail for this.”
With Musa Kart saying in his statement in front of the judicial complex, “So as to meet up in a Turkey in which journalists are not forced to make statements in front of prisons and judicial complexes … farewell,” Mustafa Kemal Güngör, in turn, said, “We are going to jail but our colleagues who got sentences of more than five years have the right of recourse to cassation. If the Court of Cassation says, ‘They should be acquitted’ on examining the case, then we will benefit from this, too. We will have been wronged. The state will say ‘sorry’ to us. I grieve on behalf of my country. Take care of yourselves.”
CHP parliamentarian Sezgin Tanrıkulu said in his statement in front of the judicial complex, “This was a trial initiated at the president’s behest. Now the sentences are being executed without awaiting the Court of Cassation proceedings. You can be sure that it will be thrown out of the Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights. Our friends going to jail is important with a view to the whole world seeing the situation in Turkey.”
Following their speeches, the former Cumhuriyet newspaper columnists entered Kocaeli judicial complex and surrendered to the Republic Prosecution for the execution of their sentences. The former staffers, their procedures having been conducted, were taken accompanied by police to Kandıra T-Type Prison No 1.
Penal Chamber No 3 (Appeal) of Istanbul Regional Court of Justice upheld the sentences handed down in the Cumhuriyet newspaper trial.
Akın Atalay was sentenced to seven years, thirteen months and fifteen days, Orhan Erinç to six years and three months, Aydın Engin, Murat Sabuncu and Ahmet Şık to seven years and six months, Kadri Gürsel to two years and six months, Hikmet Çetinkaya to six years and three months, Önder Çelik, Hakan Kara, Mustafa Kemal Güngör and cartoonist Musa Kart to three years and nine months each and accounting employee Emre İper to three years one month and fifteen days’ imprisonment for “committing crimes on behalf of the organization and against the constitutional order while not being a member of a terrorist organization.”
Announcing its ruling last April, the court ordered Akın Atalay’s release, and it acquitted Turhan Günay, Bülent Yener and Günseli Özaltay.
Those who will go to jail and the time they will spend in jail are as follows:
Bülent Utku: One year seven months and twenty days
Güray Öz, Önder Çelik, Musa Kart, Hakan Kara and Mustafa Kemal Güngör: One year and twenty-three days
Kadri Gürsel: Eleven months and twenty-seven days (Will serve no jail time in view of the time he spent in detention)
Emre İper: Seven months and fourteen days (EVRENSEL DAILY)
(Translated by Tim Drayton)
Hediye Levent
Yusuf Karadaş
Yücel Özdemir