Sebahat Tuncel goes free after retrial

2015-07-08 08:23:06

ISTANBUL (DİHA) - Sebahat Tuncel, the woman politician sentenced to over eight years in prison, has been acquitted of all charges of belonging to a "terrorist organization."

Sebahat Tuncel, a former deputy of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), was first arrested for alleged membership in a "terrorist organization" in 2006. Sebahat was in jail as her campaign for Parliament continued in 2007. After she was elected, she was released from jail, but in 2012, a court sentenced her to eight years and nine months in prison.

Tuncel is now the co-speaker of the Peoples' Democratic Congress that brings together political groups and social movements in Turkey. She recently appealed the prison sentence against her, arguing that her constitutional rights had been violated during the trial. The Constitutional Court, Turkey's highest court, agreed that her case should be retried.

At a trial in Istanbul, the court acquitted Tuncel of all charges.

The former HDP lawmaker had been sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison by the Istanbul High Criminal Court in September 2012.

She was detained on November 5, 2006, because she had allegedly attended meetings with leaders of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Tuncel was then put on trial on charges of “being a member of a terrorist organization.”

On July 24, 2007, however, she was released after she was elected in that year’s parliamentary elections.

(cm/nt)