Turkey’s top appeals court has overturned the convictions of journalist Hidayet Karaca and several former police officials in a case related to an alleged plot against a religious group, citing procedural violations that restricted the defendants’ right to a proper defense, the Turkish Minute reported, citing the OdaTV news website.
The Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that earlier convictions of former Samanyolu TV executive Hidayet Karaca and several former police chiefs should be quashed, not because the defendants were found innocent but due to flaws in the trial process.
In November 2017 Karaca was sentenced to 31 years in prison on charges of membership in a terrorist organization over his alleged ties to the faith-based Gülen movement and for allegedly slandering the al-Qaeda-affiliated Tahşiyeciler group, while several former police officials also received lengthy prison sentences in the case, which concerned claims that members of the group were targeted through a fabricated investigation.
According to OdaTV the court found that prosecutors’ final opinion was not properly obtained during the trial and that defendants were not fully granted the right to present their final defense or make a closing statement before the verdict was issued.
The court said the lower court failed to follow proper criminal procedure during a July 7, 2021, hearing, issuing a verdict without formally requesting the prosecutor’s final opinion and without giving the defense an adequate opportunity to respond.
It also cited the failure to ask defendants for their final statements as a key violation.
The ruling does not amount to an acquittal or dismissal of the case. Instead, it sends the case back to a lower court for retrial, where key stages of the proceedings will be repeated in line with due process.
The retrial will include a new hearing in which the prosecutor presents a final opinion, the defense responds and the court issues a new ruling. The lower court may uphold the original convictions, issue a different verdict or reassess the case based on the same file.
The case dates back to a December 2014 operation in which Karaca, journalists and police officers were detained over allegations that they had conspired against the Tahşiyeciler group.
Prosecutors argued that the investigation was influenced by remarks made in 2009 by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who warned about a group that “might” be called Tahşiyeciler and whose leader, Mehmet Doğan, had publicly praised Osama bin Laden. Gülen died in 2024.
The allegations also claim that Samanyolu TV made implications about the group in an episode of a soap opera it broadcast and that police later “unfairly” raided the group.
Previous reports by police intelligence, military intelligence and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) had described Tahşiyeciler as a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda.
In a 2009 live broadcast on CNN Türk, the group’s leader said he liked former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Defendants have denied the allegations, while critics have long described the case as politically motivated.
The Turkish government has been cracking down on the real and assumed followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the views and teaching of Gülen, for more than a decade.
The government’s crackdown on the movement intensified following a coup attempt in 2016, accusing the movement of masterminding the failed coup and terrorism. The Gülen movement strongly denies any involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.
Karaca was arrested two years before the coup.
Karaca applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2015.
The ECtHR ruled in June 2023 that the journalist’s detention was a violation of his rights.
The Strasbourg court unanimously found a violation of Articles 5 § 1, 5 § 4 and 5 § 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) due to the irregular nature of the decisions on Karaca’s pretrial detention rendered by the justices of the peace whom he had challenged, the lack of sufficient guarantees to ensure that his pretrial detention was decided by a “tribunal independent and impartial” and the excessive duration of the applicant’s pretrial detention, respectively.
The court ordered Turkey to pay 12,000 euros to Karaca in non-pecuniary damages in addition to 6,000 euros for costs and expenses.
The Samanyolu media group was shut down in 2016 by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as part of a large wave of shutdowns of institutions affiliated with the Gülen movement.
Turkey, long known as one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists, was ranked 159th out of 180 countries in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in May 2025.
