ISTANBUL, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A court in Istanbul on Monday started the trial of 17 executives, reporters and cartoonists of the Cumhuriyet daily over their alleged links to terror groups.
The defendants, including the newspaper's chief executive, Akin Atalay, and editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, are accused of having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party and the so-called Fethullahist Terror Organization, which Ankara says is behind last year's coup attempt, press reports said.
Eleven of the defendants have been detained for more than eight months, while the other six are free but under judicial supervision, Cumhuriyet said.
Can Dundar, the daily's former editor-in-chief, will be tried in absentia as he fled to Germany after being briefly jailed over a story accusing the government of sending weapons to Syrian opposition forces, according to Cumhuriyet.
The prosecutors are seeking between 7.5 and 43 years in prison sentences for all the defendants, the daily said, noting the trial is expected to last four days.
The government is continuing its crackdown launched in the wake of the foiled coup in July last year, dismissing tens of thousands of public servants and jailing many others, mostly over their alleged links to terror groups.
