The two journalists were charged with “disclosing identity of informants” over news report on alleged police failure to intercept ISIS operatives

Journalists Alican Uludağ and Olcay Büyüktaş Akça were acquitted in a trial where they faced up to three years in prison over a news report claiming that the police had intelligence about a deadly ISIS attack in Ankara’s central train station in 2015, which killed 103 people preparing for a peace rally.

Uludağ, a former reporter for Cumhuriyet daily who penned the report, and Büyüktaş Akça, who is the responsible editor of the newspaper, were charged with “disclosing identities of informants” under Article 6/3 of the Anti-Terror Law (TMK), which carried between one to three years in prison.

The acquittal verdict came at the end of the fourth hearing in the trial, overseen by the Istanbul 32nd High Criminal Court on 15 June 2021. The hearing was followed from the courtroom by P24, as well as the Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Uludağ and Büyüktaş Akça were not present at the hearing and were represented by their lawyer, Buket Yazıcı.

In the news report that led to the court case, published in November 2009 in Cumhuriyet, Uludağ wrote that the owner of a fertilizer company in the southern province of Gaziantep reported to the local police an attempted purchase of large amount of fertilizer, which he suspected could be terrorism-related. The report to the Gaziantep police was made several days ahead of the 10 October 2015 attack, following which the police identified the man who attempted to buy the fertilizer as an ISIS operative.

Uludağ had obtained the information through documents that were not examined by the court which oversaw the trial into the ISIS attack. He and Büyüktaş Akça were then charged with “disclosing identity of informants” because an earlier version of the story included the name of the owner of the fertilizer company.

Lawyer Yazıcı said that documents which were sent to the court by the Ankara court that had overseen the trial into the deadly ISIS attack confirms Uludağ’s statement that the report he drafted was based on the documents included in the case file. Yazıcı therefore requested the acquittal of the defendants.

The prosecutor also agreed with the defense lawyer as the Ankara court’s documents were confirmed to be the source of Uludağ’s report. As the court documents in question were public and not secret, he requested the court to acquit both Uludağ and Büyüktaş Akça of the leveled charge.

Announcing its verdict at the end of the hearing, the Istanbul 32nd High Criminal Court ruled for the acquittal of the two journalists, concluding that the elements of the impugned crime did not exist.