A former top judge who was jailed as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s post-coup crackdown has been sentenced to 13 years and 6 months in prison.
Former Supreme
Court of Appeals member Oktay Acu was convicted of membership to the Gulen movement,
a broadened terror charge the Turkish government often uses to imprison its
critics.
Acu was first
given 9 years in jail and the court in charge increased its sentence to over 10
years using discretionary power in compliance with the anti-terror law.
Acu was first
targeted by the government when he upheld a local court decision green-lighting dissident members of the opposition Nationalist
Movement Party (MHP) to convene a congress that might have removed
the leader Devlet Bahceli.
Bahceli, technically the leader of the second largest
opposition group in the parliament, is often criticizing for standing by President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan in key changes in the Constitution and for forming an
alliance with him during the controversial presidential election that gave Erdogan
sweeping executive powers.
Turkish
government accuses the movement of masterminding the July 15, 2016 failed coup
while the latter denies involvement.