Mehmet Baransu

In 2014, Turkey's highest court ruled that the officers convicted in connection with the “Sledgehammer” plot had not received a fair trial.

On March 1, 2015, in the wake of allegations by the ruling party that the “Sledgehammer” documents were forgeries, Baransu was detained in his home in the Kağıthane district of Istanbul. Meanwhile police counter-terrorist teams searched his home for ten or twelve hours (reports differed), and seized some documents.[6][14] During the months preceding this detention, he had been detained several times by police.[15]

The next day he was arrested and charged with obtaining the secret documents relating to the “Sledgehammer” plan. The Guardian described the allegations against Baransu as “extraordinary.” He faced up to eight years in prison.[16] The exact charge leveled against Baransu was that he had formed a criminal organization" and procured, publicized and then destroyed “documents related to the state’s interests at home and abroad.”[6]

In an article in the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, Ahmet Altan, founding editor of Taraf, defended Baransu, writing, “Since when have coup plans been classified as ‘documents related to state security’ and ‘state knowledge that needs to be kept classified?’ I am the person who published the [Sledgehammer] story, the one who decided it needed to be published, the one who didn’t doubt for a moment that Sledgehammer was a coup plot.” Nina Ognianova of the Committee for the Protection of Journalists called for Baransu's release, saying: “A journalist’s job is to report on developments in the public interest, and it is absurd that a journalist should be prosecuted for obtaining documents which, in any case, were shared with authorities.”[16]

In an article headlined “What lies behind Mehmet Baransu’s arrest?”, Baransu's colleague Yasemin Çongar noted claims “that Baransu drafted fake documents and committed military espionage.” Çongar asked: “Would a journalist really submit the documents he holds to the state if he made them or thinks they are fake? Would a journalist really submit the documents and evidence to the state and publish these items, if his purpose is to sell these documents and military secrets to other states?” Çongar added that Baransu apparently “was not arrested because of these rumors” but because he was “being accused of acquiring information that should have been kept confidential in the interests of the state and national security under Article 327 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). Should we now assume that coup preparations are legal and that they should be kept confidential for national security? Should we argue that journalists should simply ignore the right of the people to be properly informed and stay away from documents and evidence showing illegal activities conducted within the state? Does this not mean giving up on journalism? Does this not mean giving up on Article 3 of the Press Law and Article 28 of the Constitution?” Çongar further stated that “When I read the documents and listened to the CDs that served as the basis of those reports, I concluded that there was actually a coup plan devised in the army in 2003. I still hold this view.”[17]

The group Article 19 condemned Baransu's arrest and called for his immediate release. Article 19 had previously expressed concern about the arrest of journalists working for the newspaper Zaman, which, like Taraf, it noted, “play an important role in investigating alleged government corruption and maintaining a diversity of voices in the Turkish press.”[18] The International Press Institute (IPI) also condemned Baransu's detention. “This case appears to be an effort to target Mr. Baransu for the materials he published, in violation of the right to press freedom,” IPI Director of Advocacy and Communications Steven M. Ellis said. “Given the circumstances of the case against him, there appears to be no legitimate reason to detain Mr. Baransu while the investigation proceeds and we call on Turkish authorities to release him immediately.” Meanwhile Baransu faced a possible 52-year prison sentence “for his 2013 revelations of an 'action plan' developed by Turkey's National Security Council targeting the Fethullah Gulen religious movement.”[19]

On Sunday, July 19th, Baransu was sentenced by the court board to 19 years and 6 months in prison for three crimnes. For "violating privacy" he was sentenced to two years in prison; for "disclosing classified information" he was sentenced to four years in prison; and for "membership of an armed terrorist organisation" he was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison.[20]

Baransu has been held behind bars since 2015, having also been convicted that year of "insulting the President" and sentenced to 10 months in prison on 30 June, 2015 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.[21] Then, on 2 February, 2016, he received an additional sentence of 11 months and 20 days for his criticism of Hakan Fidan, head of the National Intelligence Organization.[22] While imprisoned, he waas tried for allegedly leaking secret documents of the state in an article titled "The Decision to Finish Gülen Was Made in 2004". This was the article where he exposed the planned coup against the Turkish Government. The prosecutor for the case demanded 50 years and 6 months in prison for Baransu.[23]