The retrial of Ahmet Altan, Nazlı Ilıcak, Fevzi Yazıcı and Yakup Şimşek, whose sentencing was overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeals, has begun. The court ruled to maintain the defendants’ international travel ban and adjourned the trial until October

CANSU PİŞKİN, İSTANBUL

The first hearing in the retrial of Ahmet Altan, Nazlı Ilıcak, Fevzi Yazıcı and Yakup Şimşek, whose sentencing was overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeals, was held at the İstanbul 26th High Criminal Court on 13 June 2023.

Ilıcak, Şimşek and Yazıcı and defendants’ lawyers attended the hearing, which P24 monitored. Altan did not attend the hearing due to health issues.

Following the reading out of the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeals to overturn sentencing, Ilıcak, Şimşek and Yazıcı spoke to request that the court abide by the decision to overturn.

The court ruled unanimously to abide by the decision to overturn which it declared procedural and lawful.

“No evidence other than journalistic activities”

Journalist Nazlı Ilıcak, who based her defense on the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgment regarding her said, “In the judgment it delivered upon my application, the ECtHR stated that the organizations for which I worked and the articles I wrote cannot by themselves be considered acts of terrorism. There are no allegations or evidence other than my journalistic activities and the organizations for which I worked. The ECtHR also found the allegations against me to be unfounded, ruled for a violation and ordered the Republic of Turkey to pay reparations.” Ilıcak concluded her defense by requesting her acquittal and the lifting of international travel ban.

Former visual director of the now-defunct Zaman daily spoke following Ilıcak. Yazıcı, who allegedly prepared and broadcasted the advertising film dated 5 October 2015 that is claimed to reference the coup attempt of 15 July, said “There is only one advert presented as evidence against me. I only attended a meeting and evaluated the completed film being presented to the newspaper, which I did not take part in preparing, from an aesthetics perspective. I request my acquittal.”

Yakup Şimşek, former brand marketing director of the now-defunct Zaman newspaper said, “No elements of crime are impugned against me other than an advertising film in the production of which I in no way played a part and getting my salary through Bank Asya” and requested his acquittal and the lifting of the international travel ban.

Two witnesses were heard with regard to Yazıcı and Şimşek

The İstanbul 26th High Criminal Court had previously refused requests for the hearing in court and cross-examination of witnesses Sedat Dil and Haydar Durusoy, on whose testimony the court had based on its ruling for Fevzi Yazıcı and Yakup Şimşek. The Supreme Court of Appeals had pointed this out in its decision to overturn and had overturned the ruling for Yazıcı and Şimşek on grounds of “violation of the right to defense and ruling upon inadequate investigation.”

Sedat Dil, who was heard as witness at the court in line with the decision to overturn said, “When I worked at the newspaper, Yakup Şimşek was brand marketing director. He worked directly under the management in organizing advertising campaigns. I did not witness any additional things connecting him to the organization.”

Witness Dil said, “Fevzi Yazıcı was the visual director of the newspaper. He did not take part in advertising campaigns. He was shown completed work to review for missing things. Şimşek and Yazıcı used to travel to Pennsylvania. I do not know if they had any other organisational activities.”

Speaking upon the statements of the witness, Fevzi Yazıcı said he had travelled to the USA to attend an international conference of visual designers. Upon this, the witness apologized to Yazıcı and said he had “misremembered.”

Yakup Şimşek asked the witness “Can you prove your allegations?” Witness Dil said “This is information from day to day conversations. I cannot prove them.”

The other witness Haydar Durusoy said that he did not have any information or experience of Yazıcı and Şimşek undertaking organizational activities.

Speaking in turn following the witnesses’ statements, lawyers for the defendant requested their acquittal and the lifting of the international travel ban.

In its judgment delivered on 13 April 2021 on the application of journalist and author Ahmet Altan, the ECtHR had ruled that Altan’s right to liberty and security and freedom of expression had been violated. Altan’s lawyer Figen Albuga Çalıkuşu requested that her client’s file be separated and her client immediately be released in line with the ECtHR’s judgment. Çalıkuşu also requested her client to be exempted from attending hearings.

The court ruled to maintain the ban on the defendants’ travelling abroad and to exempt Altan from attending future hearings. The trial was adjourned until 26 October 2023.

Background of the case

At the final hearing of the Altans court case, held on 16 February 2018, Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan, journalist Nazlı Ilıcak, visual director of the now-defunct daily Zaman Fevzi Yazıcı, the newspaper’s brand marketing director Yakup Şimşek and ex-Police Academy lecturer Şükrü Tuğrul Özşengül were charged with “attempting to destroy the constitutional order” on the basis of the allegation that “they knew about the 15 July coup attempt beforehand” and were sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment.

The 16th Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals, which completed its review of the appeal against the verdict in 2019, ruled that the actions of Ahmet Altan and Nazlı Ilıcak constituted the crime of “knowingly and willingly aiding the armed terrorist organization” and determined that Yazıcı, Şimşek and Özşengül should be tried on charges of “membership in a terrorist organization.” The chamber ruled that Mehmet Altan should be acquitted, and overturned the verdict of the court of first instance.

The İstanbul 26th High Criminal Court delivered its verdict in the retrial on 4 November 2019 and sentenced Ahmet Altan to 10 years and 6 months of imprisonment and Nazlı Ilıcak to 8 years and 9 months on imprisonment on charges of “knowingly and willingly aiding an armed terrorist organization” but released them based on the time they had already served in prison. However, Ahmet Altan was put in pre-trial detention eight days after his release upon the objection of the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Another appeal was filed with the Supreme Court of Appeals, and the 16th Criminal Chamber ruled on 14 April 2021 to ratify the sentencing of Yazıcı, Şimşek and Özşengül, while overturning the sentencing of Altan and Ilıcak for not applying the sentence reductions prescribed by the law.

On 29 April 2021, Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Supreme Court of Appeals demanded the lifting of the decision of the 16th Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals dated 14 April 2021 and the overturning of the sentencing for Yazıcı, Şimşek and Özşengül, and returned the case file to the Supreme Court of Appeals’ Penal Board.

The sentencing for Özşengül, Yazıcı and Şimşek were overturned with a decision of the Supreme Court of Appeals Penal Board on 8 December 2022 and the case file was returned to the İstanbul 26th High Criminal Court for a retiral at the court of first instance. The İstanbul 26th High Criminal Court had prepared a preliminary proceedings report for the retiral in line with the decision to overturn on 2 March 2023 and had separated the file and released Özşengül, who had died in prison from a heart attack, with full time served.