World News

Erdogan Critic Given Life Sentence in Ruling Likely to Stoke Tensions With West

Erdogan Critic Given Life Sentence in Ruling Likely to Stoke Tensions With West

ISTANBUL—A Turkish court sentenced one of the country’s most famous political prisoners to life in prison Monday on charges of attempting to overthrow the government in a trial that has come to symbolize the erosion of the rule of law in Turkey.

The conviction of businessman and philanthropist

Osman Kavala

is likely to deepen tensions between the government of President

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

and Western states that have pressured Ankara to release Mr. Kavala since his detention in 2017.

Wearing a white collared shirt and glasses, he spoke to a crowded Istanbul courtroom via videolink from prison on Monday. He said prosecutors’ demand for a life sentence was “an act of assassination by the hand of judiciary.”

After a judge read out verdicts for Mr. Kavala and seven co-defendants, the courtroom erupted in chants including, “Long live freedom, down with tyranny.”

Authorities detained Mr. Kavala at an Istanbul airport in 2017 and held him for over two years before indicting him on charges of attempting to overthrow the government and other allegations.

In Mr. Kavala’s subsequent trial, prosecutors have accused him of being at the heart of a conspiracy to overthrow the Turkish government, alleging that he provided financial support for protests that occurred in 2013.

Mr. Kavala denies the charges against him. Some observers of the trial, including human rights advocates, say the proceedings are a sham and part of a government attempt to chill freedom of speech in Turkey. A judge on Turkey’s constitutional court called Mr. Kavala’s detention “Kafkaesque” in a written explanation of a previous ruling.

Ayse Bugra, the wife of philanthropist Osman Kavala, hugged a supporter after a hearing in Istanbul last…

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