Murat Ağırel, a journalist from the ultranationalist Yeniçağ daily, has been arrested for revealing information about a Turkish intelligence officer slain in Libya, according to Turkish media reports.
Ağırel was first detained last week but released on judicial probation. He was detained again and subsequently arrested after the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office objected to his release.
Another journalist, Barış Pehlivan, the editor-in-chief of the OdaTV news website, was also arrested last Friday as part of the same investigation.
Two journalists from OdaTV, news coordinator Barış Terkoğlu and reporter Hülya Kılınç, were previously arrested on the same charges.
The journalists are accused of violating the intelligence agency law by reporting on the funeral of a Turkish intelligence officer who was killed in Libya.
The OdaTV news website posted video footage from the funeral of the intelligence officer last Tuesday and became a target of the pro-government media, which claimed that OdaTV revealed the identities of the intelligence officers attending the funeral.
The Twitter and e-mail accounts of two other journalists, Ağırel and Batuhan Çolak, were hacked after they tweeted about the intel officer last week.
Turkish Minute