Prosecutor seeks life sentence for opposition politician facing 'espionage' charges

Click to read the article in Turkish

The prosecution has demanded a life sentence for Metin Gürcan, a former military officer, an academic and a politician, on "espionage" charges.

Gürcan and his attorneys were present at the closed hearing held yesterday (November 29) at the Ankara 26th Heavy Penal Court.

A founding member of the Democracy and Progress (DEVA) Party, a splinter movement from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Gürcan was arrested in November 2021, after his photos with diplomats from multiple countries surfaced.

Denying the accusations, Gürcan reiterated that he had been providing analyses about Türkiye to diplomatic missions of Spain and Italy for a fee. All the information in his reports was compiled from open sources, according to the politician.

The prosecutor, however, said in their opinion as to the accusations that Gürcan had also conveyed information that could not be obtained from open sources, citing audio surveillance recordings.

Some of the information Gürcan gave was "information that should be kept confidential," according to the prosecutor's opinion.

Gürcan started meeting with foreign diplomats in 2016 and gave information to them about various affairs, including "Türkiye's troops stationed in other countries," "what happened before the 2018 Afrin operation," "Türkiye's activities in Libya and Syria," "countries that want to import UCAVs from Türkiye," "Field work to determine the locations of PKK members," and "internal political affairs," the prosecutor cited.

The prosecutor demanded a life sentence for "continuously disclosing information regarding the security of the state, which should remain confidential" and up to 35 years of imprisonment for "continuously obtaining state information that should remain confidential for political or military espionage purposes."

The next hearing will be held on March 9, 2023. (HA/VK)