The prison sentences for daily Cumhuriyet’s former Editor-in-Chief Can Dündar, and Cumhuriyet’s Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül, have been overturned by the Court of Cassation, which stated they should be tried over charges of “spying.”
“The sentence should be based on allegations of collecting classified information with the purpose of spying,” the court’s 16th penal chamber announced on March 9.
Dündar was sentenced to five years and 10 months and Gül was sentenced to five years by a local Istanbul court during the much-publicized National Intelligence Organization (MİT) trucks case in 2014.
The trucks were stopped in Adana by gendarmerie forces allegedly linked to the Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), headed by U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, who is accused of masterminding the 2016 coup attempt.
Cumhuriyet published some photographs and details of the incident.