Turkish Court Acquits German Journalist Accused of Supporting Terrorists

The Turkish court has acquitted German journalist Meshalie Tolu, who was accused of participating in terrorism. Tolu announced this on her Twitter page, as reported by TASS.

“After six years, eight months, and 20 days, I have been acquitted of all charges. Such a judicial process should not have existed in a rule of law,” she wrote. “The verdict cannot compensate for the pressures and the time spent in prison.”

Tolu was arrested in April 2017 on suspicion of supporting terrorists of a terrorist organization linked to the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, who resides in the United States. Ankara believes that Gülen’s supporters were the orchestrators of the failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016.

In December 2017, she was released under judicial control, having signed a document stating she would not leave the country, after which she left Turkey and went to Germany.

The arrest of German citizens in Turkey, particularly journalists and human rights defenders, was one of the factors that had previously cooled relations between Ankara and Berlin.