A Turkish court on 28 February handed down a five-year-and-eleven-month prison sentence to journalist and novelist Ahmet Altan, who was sentenced to life on 16 February in a trial where he was convicted of "attempting to overthrow the order laid out by the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey," this time on charges of "spreading propaganda on behalf of a terrorist organization" and "insulting the president."
According to a report in Evrensel, Altan attended the hearing via the Turkish judicial video-conferencing system SEGBIS. Recalling that he had been sentenced to life without parole only 10 days earlier, the writer said: "I was given a punishment as a Sharia-supporter, a coup-supporter, now I am being accused of Marxist-terrorism because of the same article, and you want to give me I don't know how many years in prison. Do hand down that sentence, my shoulders are strong."
The panel of judges sentenced Altan to three years for "propaganda of an armed terrorist organization" and to two years and 11 months for "openly insulting the president." The panel of judges said they didn't introduce any reductions to the sentence given the "negative attitude and behavior" displayed by Altan in a hearing on 4 January and "for his obvious lack of regret."
