Lawyer Resul Temur said, “There will be no retrial, no hearing will be held, the local court will simply complete the paperwork and send it back to the appellate court. This is not a reversal decision”

DENİZ NAZLIM

The Ankara Regional Court of Appeals has found deficiencies that prevented the appeal review in the trial of Mezopotamya Agency (MA) reporters Diren Yurtsever, Berivan Altan, Selman Güzelyüz, Hakan Yalçın, Emrullah Acar, Ceylan Şahinli, Zemo Ağgöz, and Deniz Nazlım, JinNews reporters Habibe Eren and Öznur Değer, and MA's former intern Mehmet Günhan, who are charged with “membership in a terrorist organization.” The court found that the indictment, imprisonment, detention, and statement records were not included in the case file and ruled that the trial could not be reviewed in its current state.

In its unanimous decision dated 23 September, the court noted that the case could be resubmitted for appeal review once the deficiencies were remedied.

Resul Temur, one of the journalists' lawyers, shared the following information: “The documents in the file are incomplete, so the court is saying, ‘complete the documents and resubmit them to the local court.’ In other words, there will be no retrial, no hearing will be held, only the local court will complete the documents and send them back to the appellate court. This is not a reversal decision.”

Background of the case

As part of an Ankara-based investigation, Mezopotamya Agency (MA) reporters Diren Yurtsever, Berivan Altan, Selman Güzelyüz, Hakan Yalçın, Emrullah Acar, Ceylan Şahinli, Zemo Ağgöz, and Deniz Nazlım, along with JinNews reporters Habibe Eren and Öznur Değer, and MA's former intern Mehmet Günhan were detained on 29 October 2022.

Ağgöz was released under house arrest, while Günhan was released under judicial control. Nazlım, Altan, Güzelyüz, Yalçın, Acar, Şahinli, Eren, and Değer were imprisoned pending trial. The jailed journalists were released on 16 May 2023.

As a result of the trial, Altan, Güzelyüz, Yurtsever, Yalçın, Acar, Ağgöz, Nazlım, and Değer were each sentenced to 6 years and 3 months in prison on the charge of “membership in a terrorist organization.” Şahinli, Eren, and Günhan were acquitted.

The first-instance court's decision was later appealed.