A Turkish court has acquitted the president of the İstanbul Bar Association and 10 executive board members of terrorism-related charges, finding that the case failed to meet the legal threshold for conviction, Turkish Minute reported, citing the Anka news agency.
The verdict was delivered on Friday by the İstanbul 26th High Criminal Court at a hearing held inside the Marmara Prison complex in Silivri, west of İstanbul.
Prosecutors had sought prison sentences of up to 12 years for each defendant on charges of disseminating terrorist propaganda and spreading misleading information through the press.
The case originated from a statement the İstanbul Bar Association published on December 21, 2024, calling for an effective investigation into the killing of journalists Nazım Daştan and Cihan Bilgin in northern Syria and demanding the release of journalists and lawyers detained during a peaceful protest in İstanbul a day earlier.
Daştan and Bilgin were killed on December 19, 2024, when their vehicle was struck near the Tishrin Dam in northern Syria while they were covering clashes between Turkey-backed forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed group led by Kurdish fighters.
Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
While the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a Turkish drone carried out the strike, Turkish authorities claimed the two victims were not journalists but rather members of a terrorist organization.
Prosecutors claimed that referring to them as journalists and describing their deaths as a killing amounted to terrorist propaganda and misrepresented state counterterrorism operations.
At earlier hearings this week, prosecutors asked the court to convict İstanbul Bar President İbrahim Kaboğlu and the board members under Article 7/2 of Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law, treating the alleged offense as a single act subject to the heaviest possible sentence.
They also cited the offense of publicly spreading misleading information but said punishment should be imposed solely under anti-terror legislation.
The defendants denied the accusations, arguing that the bar association acted within its legal mandate and exercised institutional freedom of expression on matters of public interest, including the protection of journalists and lawyers.
Friday’s hearing was attended by observers from more than 30 bar associations representing lawyers from 83 countries, as well as 17 international legal organizations. Lawyers in the courtroom applauded the defendants following the verdict.
Speaking after the ruling, Kaboğlu said the case showed broader problems facing judicial independence in Turkey and vowed to continue working to uphold the rule of law and human rights.
The criminal proceedings ran alongside a separate civil case based on the same statement. In March 2025 a civil court ordered the dismissal of Kaboğlu and the elected executive board on grounds that they had acted outside the bar’s mandate, a decision the Union of Turkish Bar Associations described as unconstitutional and politically motivated.
That ruling remains subject to appeal.
The trial had attracted international criticism, with Amnesty International and dozens of legal organizations calling on Turkish authorities to drop what they described as baseless charges.
The groups warned that Turkey’s anti-terror laws were being used to criminalize legitimate expression and professional duties, undermining the independence of bar associations and the rule of law.
