Nearly 50 years for 6 convicted of links to Turkey coup

By Murat Paksoy and Muhammed Enes Can

ISTANBUL (AA) - Six men convicted of membership of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) were jailed for 47 years on Wednesday, judicial officials said.

They were all convicted of membership of an armed terrorist organization.

Among them was Hasan Ozdemir, a former judge, who was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years by a court in Istanbul after being found to have used the encrypted Bylock and Eagle smartphone applications.

Bylock is associated with the followers of U.S.-based preacher Fetullah Gulen, who is said to have plotted last year’s attempted coup in Turkey.

In the Black Sea province of Ordu, Musa Demirci was jailed for 10-and-a-half years after being found to have acted as an “imam”, or senior member responsible for guiding others, of FETO.

Bayram Kurt was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in Rize, also on the northern coast, while another Rize convict, identified by the initials A.C., received three years, nine months in a separate case. They were also found to have used Bylock.

In the southeastern province of Adiyaman, former officials Ibrahim Orhan and Ismail Sahin were jailed for nine years each.

Thousands of defendants in trials across Turkey are accused of being FETO members on the basis of using the Bylock app in the wake of the July 15 attempted coup, which left 250 people martyred.