TWO leading Turkish journalists imprisoned for exposing the government’s covert aid to Syrian terrorists were freed yesterday after three months behind bars.

Daily newspaper Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Ankara correspondent Erdem Gul were greeted by a mass of supporters as they emerged from a prison van.

They were released from remand at Silivri prison, on the outskirts of Istanbul, at about 3am after the Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that their rights to personal liberty and freedom of expression were violated.

The International Federation of Journalists welcomed their release, calling on the Turkish authorities to drop all charges against them and to release 30 other journalists still held behind bars.

However, the pair still face charges of aiding a terrorist organisation, espionage and disclosure of classified documents. They face life imprisonment if convicted.

Cumhuriyet is aligned to the Republican People’s Party, the largest party in opposition to the Justice and Development Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

However, Mr Dundar and Mr Gul have been accused of collaborating with the movement of Mr Erdogan’s former confidant, US-based imam Fethullah Gulen.

Mr Dundar joked to reporters that everyone should move to the prison, with its views of luxury villas, judges and prosecutors as neighbours and total security from burglars.

The two journalists were jailed in late November, months after their paper published images of Turkish lorries smuggling arms disguised as aid shipments to terrorist forces in neighbouring Syria.

The photos dated from an incident in 2014 when local authorities searched the lorries and discovered the arms, leading to a confrontation with National Intelligence Organisation agents in charge of the shipment.

Some officials have suggested that the arms were destined for Turkmen groups such as that led by Turkish fascist Bozkurtlar (Grey Wolves) leader Alparslan Celik which murdered a Russian jet pilot in November.

Independent Glasgow East MP Natalie McGarry was briefly detained by Turkish security forces on Thursday while visiting the country as a member of a GMB union delegation.

She was held for using her phone to “record the sound of bombs” falling near the Sur district of the city of Diyarbakir in the majority-Kurdish south-east of the country.