October 24, 2017•Update: October 24, 2017
By Abdulkadir Nisanci, Ozgur Alantor and Selcuk Kizildag
ESKISEHIR/BAYBURT/KASTAMONU, Turkey
Four people were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms for their links with the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) in three separate court cases in Turkey Tuesday, according to judicial sources.
FETO was behind last year’s defeated coup attempt in Turkey that left hundreds of people dead and injured.
The 2nd Criminal Court in northwestern Eskisehir province sentenced a married Turkish couple to 18 years in prison, according to a judicial source.
The husband was a former research assistant at Osmangazi University in Eskisehir and received 12 years in prison on charges of being a member of an armed terrorist organization.
His wife was a former teacher and was sentenced to six years in prison for using FETO’s encrypted smart phone software ByLock, the source, who asked to stay anonymous due to restrictions to speaking to the media, added.
In another hearing in the Black Sea province of Bayburt, the court sentenced a former doctor to 15 years in prison for being a member and head of an armed terrorist organization.
In northern Kastamonu province, another former teacher was convicted for using ByLock and being a terrorist group’s member.
The court ordered the suspect to be sentenced to more than six years in prison.
Separate trials linked to the July 15, 2016, coup bid remain ongoing in Turkey. Three cases involving the incidents at Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge, Presidential Palace and Akinci, an air base to the north of the capital Ankara are continuing.
Hundreds of defendants in these cases are accused of being FETO members, which attempted to overthrow the government and the country’s constitutional order and commit murder on the night of July 15.
FETO and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup attempt which left 250 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.
