Turkey Frees Journalist Altan After European Rights Court Ruling

Journalist and writer Ahmet Altan arrested by Turkish police in 2019 in Istanbul. Top Turkish court on Wednesday released him a day after European Court of Human Rights demanded Altan’s release. (AFP)
Journalist and writer Ahmet Altan arrested by Turkish police in 2019 in Istanbul. Top Turkish court on Wednesday released him a day after European Court of Human Rights demanded Altan’s release. (AFP)
TT
20

Turkey Frees Journalist Altan After European Rights Court Ruling

Journalist and writer Ahmet Altan arrested by Turkish police in 2019 in Istanbul. Top Turkish court on Wednesday released him a day after European Court of Human Rights demanded Altan’s release. (AFP)
Journalist and writer Ahmet Altan arrested by Turkish police in 2019 in Istanbul. Top Turkish court on Wednesday released him a day after European Court of Human Rights demanded Altan’s release. (AFP)

A Turkish court on Wednesday ordered the release of journalist and novelist Ahmet Altan after over four years in prison for involving in a failed 2016 coup attempt that he had always denied.

The Court of Cassation ruling came a day after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) demanded the 71-year-old’s freedom in a verdict that accused Turkey of violating his civil rights.

Altan’s lawyer Figen Calikusu told AFP that the writer was released from the Silivri prison on Istanbul’s western outskirts a few hours after the verdict was announced.

The award-winning novelist and newspaper editor was jailed after writing politically-sensitive articles and columns critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and supporting Kurdish rights.

The 71-year-old was arrested shortly after the putsch attempt as part of a purge of media organizations and accused of supporting the uprising by “disseminating subliminal messages to the public.”

He was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for trying to overthrow the government — a ruling that was later quashed by Turkey’s top court, AFP reported.

But the case was re-examined and he was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison for “knowingly supporting a terrorist organization” that was involved in the 2016 coup attempt.

“Very happy to hear Turkey’s Court of Cassation has just ordered the release of novelist Ahmet Altan after more than 4.5 years in jail,” the European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur Nacho Sanchez Amor tweeted
.
“Will be even happier after seeing him enjoying fully his freedom and all charges dropped. Hope all other (ECHR) rulings will be applied too.”

The Court of Cassation ruling came as Erdogan mounts a charm offensive aimed at mending torn relations with the European Union and building a new rapport with the US administration of President Joe Biden.

EU leaders highlighted Turkey’s deteriorating human rights record during a summit in Ankara last week. Biden’s White House has also made human rights a much bigger issue in US-Turkish relations than it had been in the former administration of Donald Trump. Turkish officials argue that the courts are independent and not swayed by politics or Erdogan’s whims.

But critics accuse Erdogan of stacking them with supporters during the sweeping purges that followed the coup attempt.

Western observers have thus been watching the case of Altan and some other famous prisoners for signs of Turkey’s diplomatic intentions and future political course.

Perhaps the most celebrated case involves civil society leader Osman Kavala — in custody without a conviction for nearly four years and re-arrested after being cleared of all charges in 2019.

Altan was also briefly freed and cleared of all charges before being almost immediately rearrested in 2019.

The Court of Cassation ruling on Wednesday overturned his conviction in the 2019 case related to charges of “assisting a terrorist organization.”

He had turned to the ECHR for help in 2017 after calling the charges against him “grotesque.”

The Strasbourg-based rights court on Tuesday found “no evidence that the actions of the applicant had been part of a plan to overthrow the government.”

It ordered Turkey to immediately release him and pay him 16,000 euros ($19,000) in damages for violating his rights to freedom of expression.

“Deprivation of liberty, in particular continued detention, must be based on reasonable suspicion,” the ECHR ruling said.

The ECHR “found that the applicant’s criticisms of the president’s political approach could not be seen as an indication that he had had prior knowledge of the attempted coup,” it added.



Ukraine Says It Shot Down Russian Fighter Jet from Sea Drone for First Time

A serviceman of the 43rd Hetman Taras Triasylo Separate Artillery Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stands near an Archer self-propelled howitzer as it is fired towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a position in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine April 24, 2025. (Reuters)
A serviceman of the 43rd Hetman Taras Triasylo Separate Artillery Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stands near an Archer self-propelled howitzer as it is fired towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a position in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine April 24, 2025. (Reuters)
TT
20

Ukraine Says It Shot Down Russian Fighter Jet from Sea Drone for First Time

A serviceman of the 43rd Hetman Taras Triasylo Separate Artillery Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stands near an Archer self-propelled howitzer as it is fired towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a position in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine April 24, 2025. (Reuters)
A serviceman of the 43rd Hetman Taras Triasylo Separate Artillery Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stands near an Archer self-propelled howitzer as it is fired towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a position in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine April 24, 2025. (Reuters)

Ukraine destroyed a Russian Su-30 fighter jet using a missile fired from a seaborne drone, Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency announced on Saturday, in what it said was the world's first downing of a combat plane by a maritime drone.

Its statement on social media said the fighter had been shot down by a military intelligence unit called Group 13 on Friday over waters near Novorossiisk, a major Russian port city on the Black Sea.

Outmanned and outgunned by its larger, wealthier Russian adversary, Ukraine has turned to drone warfare in the air and at sea as a way to fight back throughout more than three years of full-scale war.

Ukraine's seaborne drones, which are much cheaper and smaller than conventional ships, have wrought havoc on Russia's Black Sea fleet.

Ukraine has previously said it shot down a Russian military helicopter in December 2024 using a missile fired from the same type of seaborne drone.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not comment on the Ukrainian claim, but an authoritative Russian blogger believed to be close to the ministry said the jet had been shot down.

"Yesterday towards evening, a Su-30 naval aviation fighter jet was shot down by the Ukrainian side 50 kilometers west of Novorossiisk. This was done from an uncrewed boat with an R-73 SAM (surface-to-air missile)," the blogger, who goes by the name Rybar, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

"The pilots ejected and were picked up by civilian sailors. Both are alive, and to hell with the plane."

The mayor of Novorossiisk declared a state of emergency on Saturday after local authorities said a Ukrainian drone attack had damaged a grain terminal and several residential buildings, injuring five people.