Süleyman Y?ld?r?m, a 59-year-old lawyer who lost his leg after what his relatives described as months of delayed medical care in prison and was later diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer, died Monday morning at ?zmir City Hospital, the TR724 news website reported, citing his family.
Y?ld?r?m was taken into custody on July 27 to serve a six-year, three-month sentence on terrorism-related charges due to his links to the faith-based Gülen movement.
The Turkish government designates the Gülen movement, inspired by the views of Turkish-Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen who died in 2024, as a terrorist organization and accuses it masterminding a failed coup in July 2016.
Gülen and his followers have strongly denied any involvement in the coup or any terrorist activity but have been the subject of a harsh crackdown for a decade, which intensified in the aftermath of the abortive putsch.
Y?ld?r?m had previously spent 10 months in pretrial detention following the launch of the post-coup crackdown in 2016. Relatives and lawyers said his health deteriorated rapidly in Denizli T-type Prison in western Turkey, where they allege he went nearly two months without proper medical treatment.
He was admitted to intensive care on September 6 after suffering cardiac complications and later underwent heart surgery.
Doctors amputated his left leg below the knee in October due to circulation problems. Despite medical reports stating he was unable to remain in prison or travel for checkups, authorities initially denied requests to suspend his sentence.
The Council of Forensic Medicine in ?stanbul also summoned him in person for evaluation, a decision his lawyers said put him at further risk. Despite being in intensive care and unable to travel to ?stanbul due to his life-threatening condition, Y?ld?r?m was not granted a suspension of his sentence at the time.
Following his release from prison in late October only after his condition became life-threatening, Y?ld?r?m was intubated on December 1. His weight had dropped to around 40 kilograms, and his family said he received inadequate care both in prison and after his release.
“His right to life and to medical treatment were violated,” a relative told TR724, describing him as a respected lawyer who “paid with his life for the lack of proper care.”
International bar associations and human rights groups, including the German Bar Association, had previously raised concerns about his treatment and urged Ankara to free him on humanitarian grounds.
Turkish lawyer jailed over Gülen links dies after delayed release from prison
