Upon the final decision of the İstanbul 14 Heavy Penal Court on May 16, the file was separated with the charge of “knowingly and willingly aiding an armed organization as a non-member” for both Can Dündar and Erdem Gül.
The files of Enis Berberoğlu and Erdem Gül were separated from Can Dündar’s file at the trial held on February 2019.
The court waits for the extradition of Can Dündar to Turkey to continue the trial. The court will again ask the Foreign Ministry about the identical letter revealing that Syria made a complaint about Turkey to the United Nations. Next hearing of Dündar will be held on October 31, 2019.
At the tenth hearing held on May 15, 2019, the court decided to merge all of the files left during the trial process.
In the retrial held at the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court after the 16th Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court Appeals reversed Can Dündar’s prison sentence, the prosecutor announced the opinion as to the accusations at the hearing on October 14, 2020. The prosecutor has demanded that Dündar be sentenced to 22.5 to 35 years in prison on charges of “obtaining confidential information for purposes of espionage” and “aiding the organization.” The next hearing will be held on December 4, 2020 (October 14).
At the hearing held on December 4, Dündar requested the recusal of the court board. The court ruled that his request should be rejected considering the current stage of the trial. The court board has given 7-day time to the attorneys so that they can appeal to the upper court against the rejection of the request for recusal. The next hearing will be held on December 23, 2020 (December 4).
At the 13th hearing held on December 23, the court pronounced its judgement in the absence of Can Dündar. The court has ruled that Dündar shall be sentenced to 18 years, 9 months in prison on charge of “obtaining information as to the security of the state for purposes of political or military espionage” and to 7 years, 21 months in prison for “knowingly and willingly aiding the FETÖ/PDY organization.”
The court has also ruled that the previous arrest warrant against Dündar and the seizure of his assets shall remain in force and, with the ruling pronounced today, a new arrest warrant shall be issued against the journalist. The court has further ruled that a red notice shall be issued against Can Dündar and procedures shall be started for a letter of extradition (December 23).
On June 8, 2021, it was ruled that an arrest warrant and red notice should be issued against Can Dündar as part of the file where he was charged with “knowingly and willingly aiding an armed terrorist organization as a non-member” (June 8).
