Journalist Diha reporter Mehmet Güleş was arrested on December 7, 2016. At the last hearing held on May 3, 2017, the court ruled that Güleş shall be sentenced to 6 years and 3 months in prison on charge of “membership in a terrorist organization” and be sentenced to 3 years, 1 month and 15 days in prison on charge of “propagandizing for a terrorist organization”. Güleş was sentenced to 9 years, 4 months and 15 days in prison in total.
The 16th Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals has upheld the prison sentence of 9 years, 4 months and 15 days that was ordered to journalist Mehmet Güleş, who was working as a reporter at the Dicle News Agency (DİHA), which was closed as per a Statutory Decree.
Concluding that the prison sentence of 3 years, 1 month, 15 days given to journalist Mehmet Güleş on charge of “propagandizing for a terrorist organization” was disproportionate, the Court of Cassation overturned the ruling (December 14)
2023
Güleş was retried at the Elazığ 2nd Heavy Penal Court after the Court of Cassation reversed the judgment. Güleş requested the court to follow the decision by the Court of Cassation. The prosecutor submitted the opinion as to the accusations. Claiming that Güleş is “justifying or praising the methods of the organization involving compulsion, threatening, and violence,” the prosecutor requested that he should be punished for “sequential propaganda of terrorist organization.” The court ruled that it has been proven that Güleş has committed the crime of “sequential propaganda of terrorist organization,” ruled for 1 year 9 months 25 days of imprisonment, and for deferment of the announcement of the verdict.
