As reported on 22 February, journalist Doğan Yurdakul, detained defendant of the Oda TV trial, was released pending trial from by the Istanbul 16th High Criminal Court on the grounds of health reasons. Yurdakul is suffering from hypertension as well as diseases such as heart and renal failure. During his time in prison he also developed hidden diabetes and a cyst at his right kidney.
In their application to the Istanbul 16th High Criminal Court, the journalist's lawyers emphasized that due to 66-year-old Yurdakul's staying in prison he might develop further diseases with irreparable consequences such as a stroke and that there even was the risk of his death. Thus, they had requested his release.
Oda TV co-ordinator Yurdakul was taken into custody at his home in Ayrancı (Ankara) on 3 March 2011. On 6 March, he was arrested by the order of a court on duty and taken to prison.
For eleven months Yurdakul stayed in a prison cell together with journalists Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener at the Silivri Prison a few miles west of Istanbul. The ninth hearing of the Oda TV trial on 23 January 2011 saw an interesting conversation between Yurdakul and President Judge Mehmet Ekinci about the journalist's health condition.
Yurdakul had told judge Ekinci that he went to the Forensic Medicine Institute where they decided to have an angiography taken. The judge replied, "We have not received any report on this issue. We will decide on this once we will have received the according report". A discussion on whether the court had the right to interpret a medical report followed.
Selçuk Kozağaçlı, the President of the Contemporary Lawyers Association (ÇHD), said in a statement made to bianet at the time that Yurdakul was severely ill and should be released from prison immediately. (EKN/VK)
