A major trial involving Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) suspects concluded in the capital Ankara on Wednesday. A total of 120 defendants were convicted in the case involving secretly recorded sex tapes. They were handed prison terms of up to 92 years.
A separate trial will be held for FETÖ leader Fetullah Gülen and other defendants at large, the court ruled in the last hearing held inside a massive prison-courthouse complex in Ankara’s Sincan district that houses a large number of FETÖ suspects.
The suspects, mostly former police intelligence officers, were accused of planting secret cameras in places where several politicians, including Deniz Baykal, the then leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), met their girlfriends, often in extramarital affairs. Baykal resigned from his post in 2010, shortly after the tape was leaked online. Others, mostly lawmakers from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), had also stepped down from their posts after their videos were published online.
Some defendants were already imprisoned on charges unrelated to the case, mostly stemming from FETÖ membership or involvement in the July 15, 2016 coup attempt instigated by the terrorist group’s infiltrators in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).
The prosecutor asked for harsh prison terms for defendants he accused of running an extensive, illegal surveillance operation to record the tapes about the private lives of Baykal and others and use the footage for “political gains.”
Sedat Zavar, a former high-ranking official at police intelligence, was handed down the heaviest sentence, 92 years and 10 months in prison, over the plot. Ilker Usta, another former police officer, who was convicted of illegally wiretapping the office of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was sentenced to 74 years and 16 months in prison in the case. Other defendants who were sentenced included Gürsel Aktepe, a police intelligence chief who was captured while aiding putschists in the capital Ankara during the 2016 coup attempt. Yener Dönmez, a journalist accused of membership of FETÖ and spreading the sex tape online, was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
A separate trial will be held for 46 other defendants, including Gülen who now resides in Pennsylvania, United States and other fugitives linked to FETÖ. The court also ordered the arrest of 14 defendants who were released pending trial in earlier hearings.
