The verdict hearing was held in the lawsuit filed in 2015 against the Demokratik Ulus newspaper with allegations of terrorist propaganda due to an article published in the paper.

The hearing was held in the Istanbul High Criminal Court No.13 and Managing Editor Nuray Candan, Publisher Kemal Sancılı and former publisher Ziya Çiçekçi were issued 2 years in prison each for terrorist propaganda, which were later raised to 3 years and 9 months each with aggravating circumstances.

The same sentence by the Istanbul High Criminal Court No.13 issued previously had been overturned by the Court of Appeals for lack of evidence and excessive sentencing, but this verdict was ignored.