{"id":31168,"date":"2019-01-30T17:22:39","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T17:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31168"},"modified":"2019-01-30T17:22:39","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T17:22:39","slug":"turkey-frees-us-consulate-staff-convicted-of-terror-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31168","title":{"rendered":"Turkey frees US consulate staff convicted of terror charge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Turkish court has convicted an employee of a United States<\/a> consulate for “aiding a terrorist organisation”, but released him because of the time served, Turkish state-run media reported.<\/p>\n

Turkey’s Anadolu Agency said the court in the southeastern province of Mardin sentenced Turkish national Hamza\u00a0Ulucay to four years and six months in prison on Wednesday. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ulucay, who worked for the US consulate in the southern province of Adana as an interpreter, was detained in February 2017.<\/p>\n

He was freed on Wednesday taking into account the time already served, but <\/span>the court banned him from leaving the country. Anadolu said that during his trial Ulucay sought acquittal.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

US’ Charge d’affaires in Turkey, Jeffrey Hovenier,\u00a0and consul-general of the consulate in Ankara, Alejandro Hoot Baez, were present at the trial, Anadolu said.<\/p>\n

Turkish courts had followed the same suit with Andrew Brunson<\/a>, an evangelical pastor who was sentenced to three years in prison on “terrorism” charges, but released last October<\/a> after staying two years in prison. He denied the charges.<\/p>\n

Brunson’s detention caused a diplomatic crisis between Washington and Ankara, as the two countries hit each other with economic sanctions before Brunson was freed.<\/p>\n

Life sentence sought for Topuz<\/h2>\n

Ulucay was the one of two US diplomatic mission employees imprisoned in Turkey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Turkish prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Metin Topuz, who worked for the US consulate in Istanbul, accusing him of attempting to overthrow the government and espionage, Turkish media reported.<\/p>\n

Reports earlier in the month said that the 78-page indictment on Turkish national Topuz said he was in “very intense contact” with police officers who led a 2013 anti-corruption probe that implicated top government officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Topuz has been in jail since October 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Turkish government accuses US-based religious leader Fethullah Gulen for attempting a “judicial coup” with that investigation and labeled his network a “terrorist” group. Gulen is also blamed for the 2016 failed coup but he denies the accusations.<\/p>\n

Ankara repeatedly demands the US extradite Gulen.<\/p>\n

Since the abortive putsch,\u00a0Turkey\u00a0<\/span>has detained 160,000 people and dismissed nearly the same number of civil servants over suspected links to the coup attempt, according to the UN human rights office.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Turkish court has convicted an employee of a United States consulate for “aiding a terrorist organisation”, but released him because of the time served, Turkish state-run media reported. Turkey’s Anadolu Agency said the court in the southeastern province of Mardin sentenced Turkish national Hamza\u00a0Ulucay to four years and six months in prison on Wednesday.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}