Turkish court convicts in absentia German newspaper reporter Yucel of propaganda for Kurdish rebels

A Turkish court on Thursday convicted a correspondent for Germany’s Die Welt newspaper of engaging in propaganda in favor of Kurdish rebels, and sentenced him in absentia to more than two years and nine months in prison, AP reported. The ruling also called for two new criminal investigations into German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel for alleged insults towards Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The court acquitted Yucel of charges of sedition and propagandizing for the network of a Turkish cleric whom Ankara accuses of masterminding a failed military coup in Turkey four years ago.

Yucel was arrested in Istanbul in the wake of the July 2016 coup attempt and charged with propaganda on behalf of terror groups, including the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. He was held in pretrial detention for a year and has since returned to Germany.

His case led to a diplomatic crisis with Berlin, which accused Turkey of conducting “arbitrary arrests” of German citizens suspected of links to the PKK or the network led by US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.