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| Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan |
The German foreign ministry on Friday said it was providing consular services to a German man who was sentenced by a Turkish court to six years and three months in prison for membership in a terrorist organisation.
A defence ministry spokesman said the man, identified in German media as 29-year-old Patrick K., was also sentenced to almost two years’ prison for entering a sealed military territory, but that sentence was suspended.
“It is a decision of the Turkish justice system,” the spokesman told a government news conference. “We assume that he will, as appropriate, and with his Turkish attorneys, make use of the legal options available under Turkish law.”
Five German nationals are currently detained in Turkey for political reasons, the spokesman said, but he declined to say whether Germany regarded this conviction as political.
A spokeswoman for German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, currently on an official trip to Turkey, declined to comment on whether the minister would raise the issue during his visit.
The Turkish prosecutor accused K. of being a member of the Kurdish YPG, considered by Ankara to be a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast, German newspaper Die Welt reported.
His family said he was in Turkey on a hiking holiday, Die Welt reported.
The reported court decision comes ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s arrival in Turkey on Saturday for an international summit on Syria hosted by President Tayyip Erdogan.
