Trial of 30 newspaper staff over links to Turkey's attempted coup continues

The second day of the Zaman journalists' trial continued on Tuesday in Istanbul. Over 30 journalists and executives from Turkish newspaper Zaman, which was shut down in 2016, face life sentences over charges that they had links to the failed coup attempt on July 15th, 2016.

Zaman executive Adil Gulcek's defence played out on Tuesday.

The former employees of Zaman have been charged with the "membership of an armed terror organisation" and "attempting to overthrow" the government, parliament and the constitutional order through their alleged links to Fetullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation (FETO), led by cleric Fetullah Gulen.

Zaman is said to have been affiliated with Gulen, who is living in the US since 1999. Gulen is blamed by Ankara for instigating the attempted putsch but denies any involvement.

The newspaper's offices were first seized by the Turkish government in March 2016 and then closed down by a government decree.

The suspects, 22 of them, have been in pre-trial detention for months, including 73-year-old columnist Sahin Alpay.

"If it had ever crossed my mind that the Gulenist movement would take a role in a coup attempt, I would never have written a column in the Zaman newspaper," Dogan news agency quoted Alpay as saying.

The indictment calls for three consecutive life sentences for the Zaman staff on charges of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order, the Turkish parliament and the Turkish government, and says the newspaper had exceeded the limits of press freedom and freedom of expression.

"I accept that this is an armed terrorist organisation, but I was never a member of it," columnist Ali Bulac told the court in Silivri, the site of a large prison about 60 kilometres (40 miles) west of Istanbul. He had not paid close attention to the Gulenist movement's activities, he said.

"I missed the hole in the ground when I was watching the stars. But who did see it?" Bulac said, adding the group's operations were perceived to be legal during the time he worked for Zaman.

Turkey's justice ministry announced in July that more than 50,000 people had been arrested and 169,013 have been the subject of legal proceedings since the coup attempt.

The crackdown has drawn criticism from various countries and led German Chancellor Angela Merkel to call for Ankara's European Union accession talks to be called off. Turkey says the sweeping response to the coup reflects the deep security challenges the country has faced.

The hearing will continue this week.