Dündar fined for ‘insulting’ Erdoğan

ISTANBUL

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The editor-in-chief of the daily Cumhuriyet, Can Dündar, was fined 28,650 Turkish Liras for “insulting” then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his son Bilal Erdoğan and seven others, a court ruled on April 25. 

The court ruled that Dündar had “insulted public officials” in a series of articles on the Dec. 17-25, 2013 corruption allegations, which President Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) claim was a plot to overthrow the government. 

“If revealing the truth is a crime, we will keep on committing it,” Dündar wrote on his Twitter account after the trial ended, while he read out his articles as defense, daily Cumhuriyet reported.

“Since there are no concrete allegations, I’d like to use my related articles as my defense and would like to read all of them here,” Dündar said in the hearing. 

Dündar, his lawyer Akın Atalay and the lawyers of the plaintiffs showed up to the courtroom. Atalay has said that they will appeal the decision.

“We didn’t insult anybody. We just wrote what happened,” Atalay told journalists in front of the courthouse. 
Prosecutors sought up to nine years and four months of jail time for Dündar for insulting nine people in two columns and a series of articles that he wrote.

Meanwhile, Dündar was acquitted of violating investigation confidentiality and more insulting in two other columns that he wrote.