Turkey frees prominent opposition lawmaker Berberoglu

A Turkish court has released a prominent lawmaker from the main opposition party who had been sentenced to more than five years in prison for revealing state secrets and espionage.

State-run news agency Anadolu said Thursday the sentence of Enis Berberoglu, re-elected in June, has been suspended for as long as he remains a lawmaker.

Berberoglu, a member of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, was initially sentenced to 25 years in prison in June 2017 for allegedly leaking footage to an opposition newspaper suggesting Turkey had smuggled arms to Islamic rebels in Syria. In February, the sentence was released to five years and 10 months.

In July 2017, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu led a 450-kilometer (280-mile) march from Ankara to the prison where Berberoglu was jailed, to protest the government’s crackdown following a failed coup.

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This story has been corrected to give the name of Berberoglu’s party as the Republican People’s Party, not People’s Republican Party.