Turkey court sentences Kurdish lawmaker to 55 months in jail
Encu's lawyers demanded the charges against him to be dropped on the ground his speeches and activities as a lawmaker were merely political.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - A Turkish court in the Kurdish city of Sirnak on Friday sentenced the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Ferhat Encu to four years and seven months in prison "for terrorist propaganda" and disobeying laws.
Encu's lawyers demanded the charges against him to be dropped on the ground that his speeches and activities as a lawmaker were merely political, said Kurdistan24' bureau in Diyarbakir.
A prosecutor accused Encu of membership in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and disseminating propaganda on behalf of it, asking for up to 22 years in prison.
He was also charged with organizing and participating in "illegal" meetings, walks and demonstrations.
Police had arrested Encu alongside the HDP's co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas, Figen Yuksekdag and nine other lawmakers during night raids on their houses in several provinces in November 2016.
Authorities released him on February 15, only to put him under arrest again two days later.
The MP who represents his home province of Sirnak at the Turkish Parliament had since been held in pre-trial detention at the Kandira prison in the city of Kocaeli, east of Istanbul.
Eleven HDP lawmakers including its co-chair Demirtas and former leader Yuksekdag whose membership in the parliament was dropped in February remain in jail.
Encu got into politics after Turkish warplanes killed 11 of his relatives including one of his brothers along 23 other civilian smugglers in an air assault in late 2011 near the village of Roboski in Sirnak on the border with the Kurdistan Region.
Editing by Ava Homa