Prominent Turkish journalist Nazlı Ilcak, who was sent to prison in December on conviction of libeling a public prosecutor, has been released on judicial probation, the TR724 news website reported.
Ilıcak, 79, turned herself in at a prison in the northwestern province of Sakarya on December 4 after an appeals court upheld her two-and-a-half year sentence.
She was sent to an open prison from where she was released on probation on Sunday after almost two months behind bars.
The journalist’s imprisonment despite her advanced age and journalistic activity had led to criticism.
Ilıcak was tried by an İstanbul court in 2021 and 2022 due to criminal complaints filed by prosecutor Orhan Kapıcı, who claimed that she had libeled him in an article she wrote in 2016.
Short sentences are normally suspended in the Turkish judicial system unless the person has an earlier conviction that was suspended. In such a case, they are sent to prison.
The earlier sentence on conviction of espionage had been given to Ilıcak by a high criminal court in İstanbul for revealing state secrets. The almost six-year prison sentence had been suspended.
This was not the first time that Ilıcak had been jailed due to her journalistic activities.
She was among the dozens of journalists arrested in the aftermath of a failed coup on July 15, 2016 as part of a widespread crackdown the government launched on dissidents under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.
She was released by the court under judicial supervision in November 2019.
Ilıcak became critical of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, particularly after the corruption investigations of December 2013, in which the close circle of then-prime minister and current president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was implicated, and has been vocal in her views despite intimidation.
Her long career as a journalist notwithstanding, Ilıcak entered politics from the ranks of the Virtue Party (FP) and served in parliament for one term with politicians who established the AKP after the closure of the FP.
