, to more than 16 years in prison on charges of acquiring classified information.){kind=link}
A Turkish court has sentenced opposition politician Metin Gürcan, a prominent defense analyst and co-founder of the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), to more than 16 years in prison on charges of acquiring classified information, the state-run TRT Haber reported.
At the last hearing of his trial before the Ankara 26th High Criminal Court on May 23, the court found Gürcan guilty of obtaining documents “that should remain confidential for the security and political interests of the state.” The court also issued an arrest warrant, and Gürcan was taken into custody and transferred to an Ankara prison later the same day, according to the report.
In another trial concluded in 2023, Gürcan received a suspended five-year sentence on similar charges and was acquitted of political and military espionage.
Gürcan was first detained in November 2021 as part of an espionage investigation launched by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. He was accused of providing foreign diplomats with sensitive information about Turkey’s military operations in Syria, Iraq and Libya, as well as internal defense policy discussions. Prosecutors alleged that he had exchanged the information for money.
Gürcan denied the accusations, saying the material he shared was gathered from open sources. He also cited assessments by state institutions, including the Defense Industry Agency (SSB), the interior and defense ministries and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), that found the content was not classified at the time.
He was released from pretrial detention in 2022 and put under judicial supervision.
In 2021 Gürcan publicly criticized the Turkish government’s agreements with the United Arab Emirates, warning that Turkey would be forced to make political concessions in return for promised investments.
Gürcan co-founded DEVA in March 2020 along with Ali Babacan, a former deputy prime minister in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.