A Turkish court has jailed journalist Mehmet Yılmaz, a former editor at newspapers shut down by the government following a coup attempt in 2016 over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, the state-run TRT Haber news website reported.
Police detained Yılmaz, whom the authorities had been seeking for a decade, along with Abdullah Ilık, convicted on terrorism charges over alleged Gülen links, and Serdar Uluocak, a dismissed police officer, during raids in four İstanbul districts. The two other men were also jailed.
Yılmaz previously worked as an editor at the Bugün daily and held various positions at the Zaman newspaper before becoming editor-in-chief of the Özgür Düşünce newspaper.
Following a July 2016 coup attempt, Turkish authorities shut down more than 160 media outlets by emergency decree and jailed scores of journalists, many over alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Police accused Yılmaz of using ByLock, an encrypted messaging app, once widely available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play, that Turkish authorities claim was used as a secret communication tool for Gülen supporters.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who died in 2024, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated Erdoğan as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after the coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Ilık had been sought by authorities for three years and had previously been sentenced to more than six years in prison for membership in an armed terrorist organization over alleged links to the Gülen movement.
The report did not specify the charges against Uluocak or whether he had been previously convicted of any crime.
According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, more than 127,000 people have been convicted of alleged links to the movement since 2016, with 10,485 still in prison and legal proceedings ongoing against 83,404 individuals.
