Turkish Court Hands Kosovo Deportees Heavy Jail Sentences

Two Turkish citizens controversially deported from Kosovo to Turkey last year have received heavy jail sentences in their home country.

On Wednesday, the Istanbul serious crimes court imprisoned Osman Karakaya and Cihan Ozkan for seven years and six months each for "participating in an armed terrorist organisation". It acquitted the two men of charges of "international espionage".

Ozkan and Karakaya denied the charges during their trial. In the final words of his defence, Ozkan stated: "I am not a terrorist, and I reject all the charges attributed to me," the Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet reported.

Karakaya and Okzan were two of the six Turkish nationals arrested in Kosovo in March 2018 in a controversial operation conducted by the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation in cooperation with the Kosovo Intelligence Agency.

The indictment prepared by the Istanbul Prosecutor charged all six with "running an armed terrorist organization" and with "international espionage," calling for jail sentences of between 16 years and six months and 28 years.

Karakaya's and Ozkan's case was dealt with separately from the others by the court.

The six were detained over their alleged links to the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen and his movement, which Turkish authorities call the "Fethullah Terror Organisation", or "FETO", and blame for a failed coup in 2016.  Gulen, who now lives in the US, has denied any connection to the failed coup.

Five of those arrested, including Ozkan, worked at Gulen-linked educational institutions in Kosovo, at the Mehmet Akif high school and elementary schools in the towns of Prizren and Gjakova.

The arrest and subsequent deportation of the six men proved controversial in Kosovo. The...