journalist Hosni Mahali
In response to the charges , Mahali said that “all political leaders, ministers, former diplomats, along with former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that the Turkish regime supports terrorism in Syria …and as a journalist, I rely on the statements of those officials”.
An Istanbul criminal court on Thursday handed a jail sentence to a journalist working for Syria's SANA news agency after he criticized the Turkish president.

Hosni Mahali was convicted for insulting Recep Tayyip Erdogan over his policies and blaming his government for letting terrorists cross into Syria, the state news agency said.

The charges added up to a cumulative prison time of four years and one month.

The court commuted the sentence to probation as Mahali has no criminal record, according to CNN Turk. His defense team said they would appeal the verdict in the Turkish top court.