ANKARA, Feb 16 (Reuters) - A Turkish court on Friday sentenced three prominent journalists to life in jail on charges of aiding the network blamed for a failed coup in 2016, TRT Haber television said, even after Turkey’s highest court had ordered the release of one of them. Ahmet Altan, a former newspaper chief editor, and his brother, Mehmet Altan — a columnist and academic — were accused of appearing together with veteran journalist Ilicak in a political debate show on a Gulen-linked television channel. The individuals sentenced on Friday in the Istanbul court include Ahmet Altan, the former editor-in-chief of Taraf newspaper, his brother, journalist and academic Mehmet Altan, and prominent Turkish journalist Nazli Ilicak. Veteran journalists and writers Nazli Ilicak and the brothers Mehmet and Ahmet Altan were handed the life sentences at a trial in Istanbul over alleged connections to the outlawed group of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, the state-run Anadolu news agency said. “Today’s verdict serves as incontrovertible evidence of the severe erosion of Turkey’s democracy, demonstrates that the courts too have ​utterly ​abandoned their responsibility to uphold the rule of law and safeguard freedom of speech, and sets a horrible precedent for the other trials to come.”

In September 2016, Ahmet and Mehmet Altan and Nazli Ilicak were detained as part of a wave of arrests of thinkers and writers following the failed July 2016 coup attempt.
A court in Turkey hands life sentences to six journalists, including Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan and Nazlı Ilıcak.