ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Journalist and elected parliamentarian Mustafa Balbay was freed from prison on Monday pending appeal after Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled his pre-trial detention period of more than four years had violated his rights.
Balbay was among 275 defendants including an ex-military chief, retired officers, academics, journalists and opposition politicians given mostly long prison terms in August over an alleged ultra-nationalist plot to overthrow Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist-rooted government.