A court in Turkey sentenced four former employees of the Turkish Parliament cafeteria to prison on Thursday over the sexual abuse and harassment of teenage female interns, while acquitting a fifth defendant.
The defendants worked in parliament’s cafeteria, where prosecutors said four girls under the age of 18 were sexually abused or harassed while completing internships under Turkey’s vocational education and workplace training program. The court did not order any of the convicted men back into custody, citing the time they had already spent in pretrial detention.
The Ankara 57th Criminal Court of First Instance sentenced Durmuş Uğurlu to seven years, four months in prison, Recep Seven to six years, three months, Halil İlker Güner to two years, four months and İbrahim Beşlioğlu to two years, three months on charges related to child sexual abuse or harassment.
The court acquitted Ramazan Çetin, ruling that the evidence did not establish the offense.
All five defendants denied the allegations during the final hearing and requested acquittal. The case began after one of the interns filed a complaint with police in December, alleging that she had been sexually harassed by a cafeteria employee during her internship at parliament. Prosecutors later alleged five cafeteria employees abused or harassed four underage female interns.
The defendants were initially arrested during the investigation. They were released pending trial in February, but a higher court ordered their re-arrest after the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office appealed the decision. They remained in custody until June, when the trial court again released them under judicial supervision before Thursday’s verdict.
Parliament launched an internal investigation after the allegations surfaced and imposed disciplinary measures on the employees. Prosecutors later sought prison sentences of up to 16-and-a-half years for each defendant on charges of the sexual abuse and sexual harassment of a child.
The case is not the first involving allegations of sexual misconduct against parliamentary staff. In 2018 parliament confirmed that a male staff member had harassed a 16-year-old female intern in the main building and said the worker was dismissed from public service after an internal investigation.