German Left Party (Die Linke) MP Ulla Jelpke harshly criticized court’s decision to release Turkish spy Mehmet Fatih Saylan, remarking that the verdict will encourage Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MİT).

“The MIT spies are not convicted in Germany and recently Turkish spy Sayan was released from prison on probation. This shows the incompetence of German judiciary system. Because the same judiciary demands harsh prison sentences for Kurdish politicians and Turkish communists despite there being no evidence whatsoever” Jelpke told ANF.

Jelpke said the verdict shows Germany’s unwillingness to confront the AKP regime. She said this will encourage Turkey’s efforts to follow opposition members in Germany.

According to Jelpke, “They are basically telling MIT ‘go on’.

The German court in Hamburg sentenced Mehmet Fatih Sayan to 2 years and 6 months in prison on October 10. The court ignored the documents proving the assassination plans against Kurdish politicians by Sayan, who had been in prison since December 15 and on trial for a month.

After the verdict Sayan was released from prison on probation and is now living in an undisclosed location in Germany.

After his espionage activity was exposed, Sayan applied for asylum in the Hamburg Federal Immigration and Refugees Bureau on December 12, 2016. In his first statement there, he said the MİT had been planning assassinations against Kurdish politicians. Later in his deposition at the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), he changed his story completely.

Sayan continued with the same attitude during the trial as well, denying almost all allegations by claiming they were coincidences in his personal life, clearing the MİT and attempting to put the blame on pro-Gülenist police officers. During the trial, Sayan said he “accepted the news stories about [himself] as if they were true so [his] asylum claim would be approved”.