Turkey: 3 former opposition lawmakers sent to prison

By Muhammed Enes Can, Basak Akbulut Yazar, Hasan Namli and Sukru Gunduz

ISTANBUL/DIYARBAKIR (AA) – Three former opposition party lawmakers were sent to prison early Friday, a day after parliament revoked their seats.

One of the former lawmakers is from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and two others are from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

The final judgements of the judicial proceedings against CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoglu and HDP lawmakers Leyla Guven and Musa Farisogullari were read out in the general assembly.

Guven, from the southeastern Hakkari province, was sentenced to six years and three months in prison by a provincial court for "being a member of an armed terror group."

Farisogullari, from the southeastern Diyarbakir province, received a nine-year sentence, also for "being a member of an armed terror group."

Berberoglu, an Istanbul lawmaker, was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison for leaking state secrets to a newspaper in June 2017. The sentence was later affirmed by an appeals court.

He was found guilty of leaking footage to a journalist showing National Intelligence Organization (MIT) trucks being stopped en route to Syria in January 2014.

In that incident, gendarmerie officers affiliated with the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) stopped the trucks on their way to Syria despite government orders to let them pass.

FETO and its US-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated a defeated coup on July 15, 2016, leaving 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.