25 March 2016•Update: 28 March 2016
ISTANBUL
A criminal high court in Istanbul postponed the trial of two Turkish journalists Friday, who face three charges, including espionage and attempted coup.
The closed hearing was adjourned until April 1, after several opposition parliamentarians entered the courtroom to follow the proceedings, and refused to leave despite being warned by the judges.
The court also decided to file a criminal complaint against the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers for “preventing a fair trial”.
Cumhuriyet newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief Can Dundar and its Ankara Bureau Chief Erdem Gul were released from prison Feb. 26 after Turkey’s Constitutional Court found their rights had been violated.
The journalists had been in custody since late November last year, when they were arrested after Cumhuriyet published images in May 2015, which purportedly showed shells and ammunition loaded on Syria-bound trucks belonging to the Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, or the MIT.
Gul, Erdem, their lawyers and spouses attended Friday’s hearing, along with the lawyers that represent plaintiffs, which include Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the MIT.
The journalists also face charges of “knowingly and willfully” helping the terrorist FETO/PDY organization or the so-called “parallel state”.
Headed by Fetullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Islamic preacher who runs a network of schools and commercial enterprises in Turkey and around the world, the “parallel state” represents a clandestine group of Turkish bureaucrats and senior officials, allegedly embedded in the country’s institutions, including the judiciary and the police.
Since early 2014, investigations into the parallel state have seen hundreds of civil servants, including police and public prosecutors, arrested or reassigned.
