Monday, November 8th, 2021
23 years imprisonment for 77-year-olds
German-Turk sentenced in Ankara
The German-Turk Enver Altayli has to go to prison for 23 years. An Ankara court convicted him of espionage and terrorist charges. His daughter and lawyer thinks the verdict is politically motivated and wants to take action against it.
A 77-year-old German-Turk was sentenced to more than 23 years in prison in Ankara on charges of espionage, among other things. Enver Altayli was sentenced to 13 years and four months for military and political espionage, his daughter and lawyer Dilara Yilmaz said.
The Ankara court also sentenced Altayli to ten years in prison for membership in a terrorist organization. This refers to the Gülen movement, which the Turkish leadership blames for the attempted coup in 2016.
Yilmaz described the verdict as politically motivated and announced an appeal. Altayli, who claims to have worked for the Turkish secret service MIT decades ago, was arrested in Antalya, southern Turkey, in 2017. He has since been in solitary confinement in the Sincan maximum security prison in Ankara.
Yilmaz said the decision shows that criticism of the government is being construed as espionage. Her father denounced, among other things, that democratic structures and institutions had been damaged by the measures taken by the Turkish leadership after the attempted coup. During the course of the proceedings, the lawyer repeatedly denounced that evidence obtained through torture had been admitted.
Tens of thousands were arrested in Turkey after the coup attempt. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had also dismissed more than 100,000 state employees by decree.