Turkey: Court orders pro-Kurdish leader Demirtas released

Source:Deutsche Welle Date:03Sep2019

Demirtas has been in pre-trial detention since November 2016, one of many opposition lawmakers, activists, academics and journalists who were arrested in the wake of a failed coup in July of that year.

The Ankara court “ruled unanimously” that the Kurdish Peoples’ Party (HDP) co-chair “should be released immediately,” since his defense had been completed. However, he will remain behind bars because he must also serve a four-year and eight month sentence for “terrorist propaganda.”

Demirtas could face 142 years in prison if found guilty in the main trial, for which he had been in detention for nearly three years.