President threatens legal action against newspaper and says the journalist would ‘pay a high price’ over arms smuggling report published on its website

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Lawyers for the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have accused a newspaper editor of espionage and want him jailed for life, the paper said, the latest salvo in a bitter dispute that has alarmed defenders of media freedom in Turkey.

In the countdown to a parliamentary election on 7 June, the Cumhuriyet newspaper infuriated Erdoğan by publishing video footage it said showed the MIT state intelligence agency helping to send weapons to Syria.

In an article posted on its website, Cumhuriyet – long critical of Erdoğan and of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) – said its editor, Can Dündar, was now facing charges that included “crimes against the government” and “providing information concerning national security” over the video footage.

Cumhuriyet said Erdoğan’s lawyers had lodged a criminal complaint with the Istanbul prosecutor’s office. No one from Erdoğan’s office was immediately available to comment.

Speaking to the state broadcaster TRT on Saturday, Erdoğan said the journalist behind the publication of the video would “pay a high price” for his actions and vowed to take legal action.

Reuters reported on 21 May, citing a prosecutor and court testimony, that MIT helped deliver arms to parts of Syria under Islamist rebel control in late 2013 and early 2014.

The witness testimony contradicts Turkey’s denials that it sent arms to Syrian rebels and, by extension, contributed to the rise of Islamic State, now a major concern for the Nato member.

Syria and some of Turkey’s western allies say Turkey, in its haste to see President Bashar al-Assad toppled, let fighters and arms over the border, some of whom went on to join Isis which now controls swaths of Syria and Iraq.

Cumhuriyet said its video dated from 19 January, 2014 but did not say how it had obtained the footage.

Erdoğan has said the trucks stopped that day belonged to MIT and were carrying aid to Turkmens in Syria.

He has said prosecutors had no authority to search MIT vehicles and were part of what he calls a “parallel state” run by his ally-turned-foe Fethullah Gülen, a US-based Islamic cleric who Erdoğan says is bent on discrediting him and the Turkish government.

Dündar defended his paper’s actions on his Twitter account on Monday.

“We are journalists, not civil servants. Our duty is not to hide the dirty secrets of the state but to hold those accountable on behalf of the people,” he said.