Turkey arrests oppn MP after 25-year jail verdict

ANKARA: A Turkish court on Wednesday sentenced a Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmaker to 25 years jail for leaking classified material to the press, the first time a main opposition party deputy has been locked up in an ongoing crackdown.

CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoglu had not been detained during his trial but after the verdict was announced he was immediately placed under arrest at the Istanbul criminal court, state-run Anadolu news agency said.

A dozen lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have been arrested under the state of emergency that followed last year’s failed coup.

But this is the first time a deputy from the CHP -- the main secular opposition founded by Turkey’s first president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -has been held.

The case relates to the controversial publication by the Cumhuriyet daily in 2015 of images purportedly showing the Turkish intelligence service seeking to transport arms over the border to Syria. Video footage showed police opening crates of weapons and ammunition on the back of trucks which Cumhuriyet claimed belonged to the Turkish Intelligence Organisation (MIT).

The story infuriated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who at the time warned Cumhuriyet’s former editor in chief, Can Dundar, he would “pay a heavy price”.

Dundar was last year handed a five-year-and-10-month jail term in the case. He has since fled to Germany.

Berberoglu was accused of handing over the images to Dundar.