Turkey Jails Another Professor Deported from Moldova

A Turkish court on Friday jailed an employee of the Orizont private high school chain in Moldova, Yasin Ozdil - who was handed over to Turkey in 2018 in a joint secret service operation - for 12 years.

Ozdil formerly headed the public relations department for a branch of the school chain in the Durlesti area, near the Moldovan capital, Chisinau.

The schools are reportedly connected to the movement headed by the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara considers a terrorist. Turkey refers to his movement as the FETO, or Fethullah Terrorist Organisation, and holds it responsible for the failed coup in Turkey in 2016 - which Gulen has denied any connection to.

Before coming to Moldova in 2015, Ozdil worked for the presidential office of former Turkish president Abdullah Gul.

He was detained on September 6, 2018, when the Moldovan secret services, SIS, broke down his door and took him from the apartment where he lived with his family. Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have called it a classic case of kidnapping.

The last message on his Facebook account read: "They entered my home to catch me pls police help me."

Ozdil is the fifth of seven professors controversially expelled from Moldova last year to be sentenced by a Turkish court, after being unwillingly returned home. All of them had filed for political asylum in Moldova before they were seized and sent back to Turkey.

In July, Riza Dogan, director of the same Durlesti branch of the school chain in Moldova, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in Turkey. Another three professors have been sentenced since the beginning of this year.

The head of the Moldovan commission for national security, defence and public order, Chiril Motpan,...