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)
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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
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“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.



US Senate Report Faults Secret Service Discipline after Trump Shooting

FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by US Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. President-elect Donald Trump will choose Sean Curran, right, as Secret Service Director.  (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by US Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. President-elect Donald Trump will choose Sean Curran, right, as Secret Service Director. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
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US Senate Report Faults Secret Service Discipline after Trump Shooting

FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by US Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. President-elect Donald Trump will choose Sean Curran, right, as Secret Service Director.  (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by US Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. President-elect Donald Trump will choose Sean Curran, right, as Secret Service Director. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

A US Senate report released on Sunday said a "cascade" of failures allowed a gunman to shoot at Donald Trump during a campaign rally last year and faulted Secret Service discipline including the lack of firings in the wake of the attack.

The report, released a year after a 20-year-old gunman opened fire on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing his ear, accused the Secret Service of a pattern of negligence and communications breakdowns in planning and execution of the rally, said Reuters.

"This was not a single error. It was a cascade of preventable failures that nearly cost President Trump his life," the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee report said. The Secret Service is charged with protecting current and former presidents and their families, as well visiting foreign leaders and some other senior officials.

One attendee of the July 13, 2024, rally was killed and two others were injured in the shooting. The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was subsequently shot to death by Secret Service agents.

"This was not a single lapse in judgment. It was a complete breakdown of security at every level — fueled by bureaucratic indifference, a lack of clear protocols, and a shocking refusal to act on direct threats," the committee's Republican chairman, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, said in a statement.

Kimberly Cheatle resigned as the director of the Secret Service 10 days after the shooting, amid harsh scrutiny of the agency's role, and six Secret Service agents on duty during the attempt received suspensions ranging from 10 to 42 days, the agency said on Thursday.

The committee said more than six officials should have been punished, and that two of those who were disciplined received lighter punishments than it had recommended. It highlighted the fact that no one was fired.

Current Secret Service Director Sean Curran said in a statement that the agency has received the report and will continue to cooperate with the committee.

"Following the events of July 13, the Secret Service took a serious look at our operations and implemented substantive reforms to address the failures that occurred that day," Curran said.