Arrested shortly after the coup attempt on June 15, 2016 and imprisoned for 656 days until June 2018 despite the ruling of right violation given by the Constitutional Court, journalist and academic Mehmet Altan filed a lawsuit into his “unfair arrest”; the trial began at the İstanbul 11th High Criminal Court. Altan was arrested on September 22, 2016. The Constitutional Court gave him a ruling of rights violation and release on January 11, 2018 and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on March 20, 2018. Despite these rulings, Altan was held behind bars for another 5.5 months until he was released on June 7, 2018.

The court board gave Figen Albuga Çalıkuşu, the attorney of Altan, who was acquitted in November 2019, 10-day time to submit her evidence to the file as to the request for pecuniary damages (June 4).

At the last hearing, Mehmet Altan asked, “The people who are on trial here arbitrarily kept me in prison by disregarding the Constitutional Court ruling. Will all these be found normal?” As the court sent the files of judges Kemal Selçuk Yalçın, Mehmet Akif Ayaz and Seval Alaçam to the Council of State, they will all stand trial along with Abdurrahman Orkun Dağ. The court case against Dağ filed at the Court of Cassation on October 13 will continue on December 21. Acting against the law by not implementing the Constitutional Court and ECtHR rulings as part of the lawsuit for damages, Dağ was appointed to the Court of Cassation after he had given rulings of conviction in the Cumhuriyet newspaper case (December 4).