02.06.2025 18:20
After the founder of the DEVA Party, Metin Gürcan, was sentenced to prison on espionage charges, the DEVA Party issued a statement. The statement said, "A smear campaign is being conducted. Metin Gürcan has long since resigned from all memberships in our Party. Given this situation, we find the continuation of this smear campaign inconsistent with the ethics and principles of the press, and we strongly condemn it."
The DEVA Party, in a statement regarding the imprisonment of one of its founders, Metin Gürcan, for espionage, said, "A smear campaign is being conducted. Metin Gürcan has long since resigned from all memberships in our Party."
In the case where DEVA Party founding member Metin Gürcan is accused of espionage against foreign mission representatives, the verdict has been announced.
16 YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT
The court sentenced former soldier and academic Gürcan to 16 years and 8 months in prison for "obtaining information that must be kept secret in terms of state security and political interests."
REACTION FROM THE DEVA PARTY
Following the prison sentence given to Gürcan, the DEVA Party announced in a statement that Gürcan had long ago resigned from party membership.
The statement said, "Today, a smear campaign aimed at discrediting our party through Metin Gürcan is being conducted in the written and visual media. Metin Gürcan has long since resigned from all memberships in our Party. Given this situation, we find the continuation of this smear campaign inconsistent with the ethics and principles of the press and strongly condemn it."
WHO IS METİN GÜRCAN?
Metin Gürcan worked in various units of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) between 1998 and 2014. He served in the Southeastern Anatolia region, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Trained within the Special Forces, Gürcan obtained a master's degree in Security Studies with his thesis titled 'The Peripheral-Central Relationship between the Regional Kurdish Administration and the Central Government in Baghdad' at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School between 2008 and 2010.
He retired voluntarily in January 2015. Currently, Gürcan is writing his doctoral thesis on the institutional transformation capacity and willingness of the TSK in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University. He has published numerous academic articles in international and national peer-reviewed journals such as Turkish Studies, Small Wars Journal, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, and Perceptions on topics including the changing nature of conflict, terrorism, insurgency and counterinsurgency, civil-military relations, foreign policy, and military strategy.