Probe launched against journalist İsmail Küçükkaya for 'insulting public officials'

ISTANBUL

An investigation has been launched into İsmail Küçükkaya, an anchorman at broadcaster Fox TV, over “insulting public officials” and “humiliating the government.”

Küçükkaya and his lawyer Fidel Okan went to the Bakırköy Courthouse in Istanbul on Oct. 18 but he did not testify as footage, including the journalist’s alleged crime, had yet to be submitted to the court.

Küçükkaya’s testimony will be taken in the coming days, once the evidence is formally submitted, officials stated.

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had ordered a probe into the journalist after Family Minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya filed a complaint against him and his lawyer Okan.

Kaya accused Küçükkaya and his lawyer of defamation after the former claimed that her husband had been caught as a user of ByLock, an application used by followers of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, believed to have been behind Turkey’s July 2016 coup attempt. Küçükkaya also said the minister later decided to divorce from her husband over the issue.

The government categorically ruled out these accusations.

Küçükkaya subsequently apologized to the minister “for getting involved in her private life” but he also insisted that his report was correct.

Meanwhile, Evrensel managing editor Çağrı Sarı was sentenced to 11 months and 20 days in prison for “insulting” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Oct. 18. Sarı’s sentence was then postponed by the court, which imposed a one-year legal “monitoring” period on her.