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Turkey Follows Landmark Acquittal With Order to Detain Kavala

Turkey Court Acquits Businessman Osman Kavala in Gezi Case

(Bloomberg) -- A Turkish prosecutor issued a warrant to detain businessman Osman Kavala only hours after an Istanbul court unexpectedly acquitted him in another case of plotting to overthrow the government during mass protests that rocked the country in 2013.

Kavala, who was released earlier on Tuesday after nearly 840 days in prison, will be questioned as a part of an investigation into the 2016 coup attempt against Turkey’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to state-run Anadolu Agency.

The legal reversal caps a day that began with a surprise end to a trial that tested the limits of opposition to Erdogan. Nine defendants were cleared, and the court rescinded arrest warrants against seven others living abroad, including journalist Can Dundar, who fled the country. Kavala, 63, spent more than two years in jail while his case was tried, the only defendant to be incarcerated.

The courtroom in Silivri, 70 kilometers (44 miles) from Istanbul’s city center, was packed with the defendants’ supporters, who exploded into applause after the verdict was delivered. The judge said there wasn’t enough concrete evidence against the suspects.

Human rights groups were closely following the trial, and the European Court of Human Rights ruled in December that Turkey had violated the European Convention of Human Rights in the case.

Erdogan’s Crackdown

Kavala was charged years after the protests, under a sweeping crackdown on dissent that Erdogan unleashed after the coup attempt against him in July 2016.

The Turkish leader has alleged that Kavala was the “local collaborator” of a foreign conspiracy led by billionaire George Soros to divide Turkey by backing popular demonstrations against the planned razing of Gezi Park in central Istanbul in 2013.

Soros has been attacked by nationalist politicians and commentators from the U.S. to Italy to his native Hungary over his support for liberal causes, with many of the barbs widely seen as anti-Semitic.

The Gezi Park protests quickly spread across Turkey after a violent police crackdown, and subsequently turned into the biggest political challenge to Erdogan, then Turkey’s prime minister.

--With assistance from Ercan Ersoy.

To contact the reporters on this story: Fercan Yalinkilic in Istanbul at fyalinkilic@bloomberg.net;Ugur Yilmaz in Istanbul at uyilmaz@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Paul Abelsky

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