CHP Deputy Berberoğlu sentenced to 25 years for leaking secret documents

A main opposition party deputy was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Wednesday over making secret information public for the purpose of political or military espionage.

Istanbul's 14th Heavy Penal Court handed down the sentence to Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Enis Berberoğlu over newspaper coverage of a number of National Intelligence Organization (MIT) trucks stopped en route to Syria in January 2014.

The MIT trucks were stopped by local gendarmerie in the southern province of Adana, despite a national security law forbidding such a search.

The Interior Ministry denied that the trucks were carrying arms to groups in northern Syria, saying that in fact they were transporting humanitarian aid to the Turkmen community in the war-torn country.

Berberoğlu was accused of leaking footage of the stopped MIT trucks to Can Dündar, then editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet daily.

The court convicted Berberoğlu of "making public information that must be kept confidential for state security …. for purposes of political or military espionage."

In addition, the court ordered that the current case be separated from a case against Berberoğlu, Dündar and Cumhuriyet Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül for "helping an armed terrorist organization knowingly and willfully without being a member of it."

The CHP's parliamentary group held an extraordinary meeting following the news of Berberoğlu's sentence, and CHP deputies also left the general assembly, to later regroup at party headquarter to meet with CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.