Businessman Karamehmet sentenced to seven years in prison for embezzlement

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

An Istanbul court on May 10 sentenced two prominent businessmen to jail, over their misuse of loans at Pamukbank, a private bank that was sold in 2003 to state owned Halkbank.

Turkish businessman Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Çukurova Holding and former deputy chairman of Pamukbank, was sentenced to seven years and one month in prison for embezzlement. Along with Karamehmet, the former owner of broadcaster ATV and the daily newspaper Sabah, Dinç Bilgin, was sentenced to one year and eleven months in prison.

Karamehmet was sentenced to more than eleven years in prison after his first trial in 2010, which was overturned a year later by Turkey's high court of appeals.

Because of the trial, he was forced to vacate the chairmanship of Turkcell, the biggest mobile operator in Turkey.

Karamehmet was appointed to Pamukbank's board before it was taken over by the government in 2002, following a financial crisis that wreaked havoc in Turkey's then inadequately regulated banking sector.