Turkey Frees Columnist After Erdogan Ally Urges Retrial

Supporters of Fethullah Gulen Movement protest outside of Zaman newspaper as Turkish Police try to get inside for taking over the control, in Istanbul, Turkey 04 March 2016. Photo: EPA/SEDAT SUNA

His release follows a ruling of the Supreme Court, which ordered a retrial after Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, MHP - a close ally to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan - called for one.

Turkone was arrested in 2016 as part of the government's crackdown on exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen's movement and its sympathizers.

President Erdogan's government accuses Gulen and his network of establishing a parallel structure within the state, and claims it orchestrated a failed coup attempt in July 2016.

Since then, Ankara has referred to Gulen's movement as the Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation, or FETO, for short. Gulen has denied any connection to the failed coup.

Turkone was jailed for 10 years and six months on charges of "being a member of a terrorist organisation."

"I know Turkone from his student years. The case of Mumtazer Turkone's should be evaluated again with a punctiliousness," Bahceli said previously on June 23.

Turkone used to be an MHP supporter in his youth. His brother was killed in the clashes between rightists and left-wing students in 1979, and is widely remembered as a martyr and hero by Turkish nationalists.

Turkone's lawyer, Figen Calikusu told BIRN that the rule of law had prevailed and that Turkone was already free and back with his family.

Following the failed coup attempt in 2016, many journalists, including those who had worked for Gulen-affiliated media outlets, were arrested.

Human rights groups and opposition parties have accused the government of using the...