Turkey's last Ergenekon trial ends as all defendants acquitted
The 13 defendants in the Turkey's controversial "Odatv trial" have been acquitted in the final case of Turkey's Ergenekon trials, but few Turks feel that justice was served.
![AFP_994VZ TOPSHOT - A demonstrator holds a placard reading "Free Press Free Society", outside the Istanbul courthouse on April 1, 2016, where Turkish opposition Cumhuriyet daily's editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul attend their trial.
Cumhuriyet daily's editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul face possible life terms on spying charges over a news report accusing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government of seeking to illicitly deliver arms bound for neighbouring Syria.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_hero_medium/public/almpics/2017/04/GettyImages-518487394.jpg/GettyImages-518487394.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=zg_Hmqac)
Istanbul's 18th Heavy Penal Court acquitted all 13 defendants in the controversial “Odatv trial” on April 12. Odatv is a staunchly secular news website in Turkey that got into trouble in 2010 with the followers of the Pennsylvania-based preacher Fethullah Gulen in the judiciary and national police department — a network that many Turks refer to as the Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization, or FETO.
Originally composed of 14 defendants — Kasif Kozinoglu, a high-ranking official in Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, died in 2011 — the Odatv suspects were charged with being a front for the alleged Ergenekon network. Even though Turks of all political stripes had suspected for years that a “deep state” structure often sowed chaos and disorder in their country — carrying out assassinations and false flag operations in order to undermine and overthrow democratically elected governments — the Ergenekon trials became infamous for evidence tampering, late-night arrests, secret witnesses and denial of defense.