HSBC Turkey CEO Acquitted on Charge of Insulting Erdogan 

(Bloomberg) -- HSBC Holdings Plc’s head of Turkey was acquitted over allegations that he insulted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during anti-government protests nearly six years ago.

Erdogan’s lawyers were absent from the hearing at Istanbul’s Anatolian Justice Palace, the nation’s largest public building, as Selim Kervanci’s lawyer said she was informed the president has no complaints against her client. Wearing a dark grey suit, Kervanci told the judge in his only appearance on the matter that he had no intention of insulting anyone and that the case amounted to “an assault on my career and my reputation.”

The HSBC boss was investigated by prosecutors over a video he retweeted during the so-called Gezi protests in 2013. A clip he shared was from the 2004 German movie “Downfall,” set during Adolf Hitler’s last days and depicting the collapse of Nazi Germany. The indictment, accepted by an Istanbul court in January, alleged that the video offended Erdogan by drawing parallels with Hitler.

The banker said he retweeted the post to his 30 Twitter followers at the time without knowing its content and as a reminder to himself to check it afterward. Kervanci informed the banking regulator immediately after receiving the complaint against him in 2018 and officials had no objection with him continuing in his job, the court heard.

Kervanci has been one of the highest-profile executives caught up in the government’s crackdown on dissent that escalated after the 2013 protests, when a small sit-in against the redevelopment of the Gezi Park in central Istanbul morphed into weeks of nationwide protests against the government. Erdogan often describes the demonstrations as a precursor to the failed coup to remove him in July 2016, which was followed by even worse restrictions against free speech.

The complaint that led to the trial was filed by a citizen last year, Kervanci said, speculating that it could’ve been someone who got “upset” because of the lender’s restructuring. HSBC Bank AS, as the Istanbul-based unit is known, has cut the number of branches to 82 from about 300 in a reorganization. The process started in 2016 after the company’s London-based parent scrapped plans to sell the unit.

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