Journalist Nazlı Ilıcak serving life gets another six years in prison

ISTANBUL

An Istanbul court on Jan. 22 sentenced journalist Nazlı Ilıcak serving a life sentence to almost six additional years in prison for leaking information deemed secret by the government, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.

Ilıcak was sentenced to life in prison along with five others, including journalists Mehmet Altan and his older brother Ahmet Altan, last February for aiding plotters of a 2016 failed coup attempt.

On Jan. 22, the court sentenced Ilıcak to five years and 10 months in prison in a separate case where she was charged with “sharing information that needed to remain secret for the security of the state,” Anadolu Agency has said.

The case involves Ilıcak’s publishing the relevant information on her column published on daily Bugün in 2015.

Ilıcak, who attended the fifth hearing of the case via the voice and video informatics system (SEGBİS), said that the lawsuit was filed three years after her article was published, whereas the press law stipulates a four-month time period to press charges. “The press prosecutor had dismissed the suit before, and rendered a verdict that I should not be on trial for national security and secrecy,” she said.

Ilıcak’s lawyer requested her acquittal while underlining that his client was just fulfilling her journalistic duties.

Ilıcak had also been sentenced to 14 months in prison last year for insulting the president, a crime punishable by up to four years in prison in Turkey.