Istanbul (AFP) - An Istanbul court on Friday jailed two opposition journalists on charges of revealing state secrets, in a trial that has become a lightning rod for concerns about the erosion of press freedom in Turkey.
Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of leading opposition daily Cumhuriyet, was sentenced to five years and 10 months at the closed-door trial, while his Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul was handed five years in prison, television stations said.
The sentencing came hours after Dundar escaped an apparent attempt on his life by a gunman outside the courthouse.
The two men were acquitted of espionage but were found guilty of revealing state secrets over a story accusing the government of seeking to illicitly deliver arms bound for Syria.
They will not immediately be placed in detention as the court of appeal has yet to rule on the case.
"We will continue to do our job as journalists, despite all these attempts to silence us," Dundar told reporters after the verdict. "We have to preserve courage in our country."
- 'You will pay' -
Media identified the gunman who attacked Dundar outside the courthouse as 40-year-old Murat Sahin.
Brandishing a pistol, the attacker had fired at Dundar as he stood outside during a break as the court prepared to deliver its verdict.
Dundar was unharmed and the gunman, who fired two or three times in front of TV cameras assembled for the trial, was detained by police. NTV television reported that its reporter Yagiz Senkal was lightly injured by a ricocheting bullet.
"You are (a) traitor. You will pay a price," the attacker shouted at Dundar, according to CNN-Turk television.
Television footage showed Dundar's wife Dilek holding the attacker by his collar and handing him to the police, with bloggers on social media saluting her bravery.
Sahin was reportedly a former factory worker who had long been unemployed and had an unspecified criminal past. An Istanbul resident, he hailed from the central Anatolian city of Sivas.
CNN-Turk reported him as saying he had wanted to teach Dundar "a lesson" and that he had acted alone. "I did not want to kill him, but I could have done it," he was quoted as saying.
Special plain clothes police agents turned their weapons on the gunman, ordering him to lie chest down on the ground before detaining him.
"We know very well who showed me as a target," Dundar said after the attack, accusing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and pro-government media of whipping up a climate of hatred against him.
