Turkiye sentences family to a century in prison for spying for Israel’s Mossad

Turkish authorities have sentenced a family to a total of 100 years in prison for spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, in the latest move to crackdown on the agency’s activities within Turkiye.

Last April, Turkiye’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) captured and arrested multiple suspects in an operation which uncovered their active participation in espionage activities for Mossad, contact with the agency’s operatives, and that they had gathered confidential information on targets.

Yesterday Istanbul’s 23rd Heavy Penal Court sentenced them to a total of 100 years in prison. The suspects included a family of three, with insurance company owner Ahmet Ersin Tumlucali handed a 22-and-a-half-year jail term for leading a network of Mossad operatives. This was reduced to 18 years and nine months on “good behaviour”, however.

His wife, Benan Tumlucali, was sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison, while her daughter, Dila Sultan Simsek, was sentenced to 15 years, seven months and 15 days in prison. In addition, the court handed three other accomplices sentences of 15 years, seven months and 15 days.

According to prosecutors and their indictment cited by Turkish media, the group worked for a Mossad unit in charge of “online operations” and was primarily tasked with photo surveillance and the gathering of intelligence on targets within Turkiye and sometimes abroad.

“It is understood that the suspects were engaged in acts of obtaining information about foreigners in the country, particularly those who fled their home countries due to conflicts and shared this intelligence,” the indictment stated.

READ: Turkiye dismantles family of Mossad spies