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Turkey: 3 former opposition lawmakers sent to prison

Parliament revoked seats of opposition lawmakers from CHP, HDP on Thursday

Muhammed Enes Can, Basak Akbulut Yazar, Hasan Namli and Sukru Gunduz  | 05.06.2020 - Update : 05.06.2020
Turkey: 3 former opposition lawmakers sent to prison

ISTANBUL / DIYARBAKIR

Three former opposition party lawmakers were sent to prison early Friday, a day after parliament revoked their seats.

One of the former lawmakers is from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and two others are from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

The final judgements of the judicial proceedings against CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoglu and HDP lawmakers Leyla Guven and Musa Farisogullari were read out in the general assembly. 

Guven, from the southeastern Hakkari province, was sentenced to six years and three months in prison by a provincial court for "being a member of an armed terror group."

Farisogullari, from the southeastern Diyarbakir province, received a nine-year sentence, also for "being a member of an armed terror group."

Berberoglu, an Istanbul lawmaker, was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison for leaking state secrets to a newspaper in June 2017. The sentence was later affirmed by an appeals court.

He was found guilty of leaking footage to a journalist showing National Intelligence Organization (MIT) trucks being stopped en route to Syria in January 2014.

In that incident, gendarmerie officers affiliated with the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) stopped the trucks on their way to Syria despite government orders to let them pass.

FETO and its US-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated a defeated coup on July 15, 2016, leaving 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

Berberoglu allowed to open prison

Later on Friday, Berberoglu was allowed to be held in an open prison as part of measures against the novel coronavirus.

Berberoglu has the legal right to be transferred to an open prison due to the time he already spent in prison in a previous arrest.

All inmates in the open prison were allowed to leave the prison until July 31, 2020 as part of outbreak precautions.

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