11 December 2015•Update: 11 December 2015
ANKARA
An Istanbul court rejected Friday an appeal for the release of two journalists from the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet who face charges of espionage and supporting terrorism.
The Istanbul Seventh Court of Peace refused freeing newspaper’s daily's editor-in-chief, Can Dundar, and its Ankara bureau head, Erdem Gul, on the grounds that "there is no new evidence to terminate [their] detention."
The duo's lawyers submitted the appeal to the court Monday.
Dundar and Gul were arrested on Nov. 26 over the publication of photographs and video footage purportedly showing shells and ammunition loaded on Syria-bound trucks belonging to Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT).
They face life in prison if convicted.
The MIT trucks were stopped in January 2014 in the southern provinces of Hatay and Adana. At the time, the government said the trucks were carrying humanitarian aid to Syria’s Turkmen community.
The images revealed by Cumhuriyet in May 2015 showed weaponry stacked under boxes containing medicine.
An Istanbul prosecutor in charge of the probe against the two journalists has said that the MIT trucks were stopped and searched by "managers and members of the FETO/PYD terrorist organization".
The prosecutor has alleged that the MIT trucks operation had been carried out on the orders of Fetullah Gulen and Emre Uslu, leaders of the FETO/PYD.
He accused the journalists of disclosing confidential information in articles published the daily in an alleged attempt to aid the group.
