Baransu was briefly detained last week over his exposure of the leaked document, but the court released him despite the prosecution’s demand for his arrest.
In a criminal complaint sent to the Kadıköy Public Prosecutor’s Office by Hıfzı Çubuklu, the General Staff’s legal adviser, on Nov. 20, 2009, the prosecutor was asked to take legal action against Baransu. In the complaint, it was noted that those who violate the principle of the confidentiality of an ongoing judicial process, including media organs and civil servants leaking information and documents, must be subject to “effective, sufficient and deterrent” punishments, highlighting that what Baransu did could not fall within the protection of the freedom of the press.
In the criminal complaint, which also includes the two news articles about the Cage report written by Baransu, it is further claimed that the articles are illegal and that they were published systematically and deliberately in an attempt to violate the confidentiality of the ongoing Ergenekon case.
About 3,000 court cases have so far been filed against journalists who have written books or articles about the case against Ergenekon, a shadowy crime network that has alleged links within the state and is suspected of plotting to topple the government. Most of the cases have been filed based on Turkish Penal Code (TCK) Article 288, which encompasses the violation of confidentiality of an ongoing judicial process.
