Actor Barış Atay fined in Erdoğan’s libel case
İSTANBUL (DİHA) - A Turkish actor has been fined 7,080 Turkish Liras for a piece he wrote, on the grounds that it defamed the then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, meanwhile acquitting him of the piece’s remarks about the son of Erdoğan, Bilal Erdoğan, and Saudi businessman Yasin El Kadı.
Lawyers of Bariş Atay, the actor under trial, said the piece did not intend to defame, reminding the court that Yasin El Kadı was on the list of terror financiers in many countries. However, the lawyer of complainants Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Bilal Erdoğan demanded punishment. Meanwhile, the lawyer of El Kadı refuted the financier claims in Atay’s piece saying Kadı was previously acquitted from the similar charges.
At the hearing, Atay voiced his disturbances about the current justice system. Last year, Atay wrote a piece for daily Birgün, entitled ‘Hey, leader of the government.’ The complaints came over the sentence, “[…]That is the hotel lobby where Bilal met with Yasin El Kadı, one of the biggest financiers of terror, to plan corruption.”
(nt)
