On 10 September 2016, Altan was arrested in the wake of the coup d'état attempt. He was later indicted on charges of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and acting on behalf of a terrorist organization. The Constitutional Court of Turkey ruled on 11 January 2018 that his rights as a journalist had been violated, but his subsequent application for release was rejected by Istanbul Assize Court. On 16 February 2018 he was sentenced to life in prison. In response to this, on 20 March 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) made a ruling that determined that his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated, namely Article, namely Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) and Article 10 (freedom of expression). He was sentenced to life in prison for terror related charges in February 2018 because the day before the Turkish coup d`état attempt 2016, according to Reuters he said on television: “Whatever the developments were that led to military coups in Turkey, by making the same decisions, Erdogan is paving the same path”. On the 27 June 2018 he was released pending trial.