The indictment prepared by Anatolia Republican Prosecutor, IHH and Bülent Yıldırım stood as the complainant. The indictment quoted the news article entitled “Al-Qaida, IHH, aid truck etc…” and published in Taraf paper dated 15th January 2014.
The prosecutor’s office noted that the complaint against Uslu is filed as his article contained an implication that IHH is engaged with smuggling weapons.
"In his defense at the Prosecutor’s Office Uslu said that his article did not contain any offensive element; and that he wrote it regarding the police operations against IHH thus brought up the allegations against IHH in this regard; and added that these allegations were published in other papers as well; therefore he did not accept the charges.”
The indictment stated Uslu has written that using civil war in Syria as a pretext, IHH was helping Al-Qida, an illegal organization operating in this country; and intelligence service used aid organizations in transfer of arms; and the humanitarian organization most frequently used to this end was the complaining organization; thus he drew a link between IHH and the terrorist organizations implying that IHH provided them with arms; so he defamed the complainant through media.
The indictment was approved by 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance to where it was brought. Emre Uslu will be facing 1-year-3-month to 7-year jail sentence with the trial starting in the following days.
