The 4th High Criminal Court in Ankara sentenced Hidayet Karaca, former chairman of Samanyolu TV Group, Ilhan Isbilen, Kazim Avci, Alaaddin Kaya, the owner of Feza Media Group to aggravated life sentence for “participating in the coup attempt” and to 17 years and 4 months imprisonment“ for laundering of assets acquired from an offence” and “theft by deception”  (June 8).

In the trial, Ahmet Tatar, the elder brother of Lt. Colonel Ali Tatar, who had committed suicide in prison, Emin Arslan, the retired Vice Director General of Security, and Şengül Hablemitoğlu, the spouse of writer Necip Hablemitoğlu, who was murdered in 2022, were also among the aggrieved and plaintiffs. Zaman newspaper’s former grant holder Alaaddin Kaya demanded that the effective repentance law be executed in his case. Allegedly the press imam of the organization and facing an aggravated life sentence, Kaya was allegedly one of the “significant and effective executives of the FETÖ” before the coup attempt. Kaya argued that he had installed ByLock app upon the request of Zübeyir Kaya, they communicated via this program, he had four conversations on ByLock and he did not have a talk even though he had called in one case: “Then, as communication continued via the Kakao program, I deleted ByLock and used Kakao; I deleted it after December 17-25, too.”

The 3rd Penal Chamber of the Court of Cassation overturned the aggravated life sentences given to journalists Hidayet Karaca and Alaaddin Kaya on charge of “attempted overthrow of the government” as per Article 309 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). In the related ruling, it was indicated that no concrete act was detected on the part of the journalists during the coup attempt. Noting that the journalists be put on trial on the upper limit on charge of “being members of an armed terrorist organization”, the Court of Cassation sent the file to the Ankara 4th High Criminal Court for a retrial (July 28).