Sisê Bingöl, an elderly and ailing woman who has been serving time on a terrorism conviction since 2017, is to be released on probation according to her lawyer.
Bingöl’s lawyer, Gülşen Özbek, told Gazete Fersude on Monday that the woman is expected to be released in the evening.
A few months ago a medical report prepared by Turkey’s Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) for Bingöl claimed that she had been pretending to be sicker than she was despite an earlier report that said the state of her health rendered her unfit to remain in prison.
The Artı Gerçek news website reported on the ATK assessment for the jailed woman, stating that her latest examination on Jan. 7 by the ATK concluded that the elderly woman was fit to stay in prison. An earlier report by Mersin University that was sent to the ATK in November stated that Bingöl could not even remember her name, did not know the date, did not recognize her inmates and could not control her bladder.
The university medical report recommended suspension of her sentence.
Despite her advanced age and a number of health problems, she was sentenced to four years, two months in prison for “knowingly and willfully helping a terrorist organization” in April 2017 and sent to prison along with her son, who was tried on the same charges. She has been jailed in Tarsus Prison. Petitions from her lawyer demanding the woman’s release on judicial probation had until now been rejected.
Bingöl was first arrested in a village in Muş province on allegations of membership in a terrorist organization in April 2016 and released pending trial three months later due to deteriorating health.
There are 1,154 sick prisoners in Turkish jails, 402 of them in serious condition, the Human Rights Association announced at a press conference in July in Diyarbakır.