Former AKP heavyweight to pay compensation to Turkey’s main opposition leader over fake photo

ISTANBUL

A former senior figure of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been sentenced to pay compensation to the main opposition leader for sharing a fake photo showing him with Fetullah Gülen, the leader of FETÖ who is widely believed to have been behind the July 2016 coup attempt.

Demirören News Agency reported Dec. 27 that the 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance in Ankara ruled in a defamation suit that Burhan Kuzu, a former MP and the chair of the constitutional committee of parliament, will pay 20,000 Turkish Liras in compensation to Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the chair of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). 

Kuzu had shared in July 2017 a fake photo showing Gülen and Kılıçdaroğlu sitting side by side. After reactions, he had deleted it by saying that the photo “already remained as long as it was needed and the goal has been achieved.”

The verdict came a year and a half after Kılıçdaroğlu’s attorneys sued Kuzu over “lies and defamation,” demanding 30,000 Turkish Liras in compensation.

It was the second defamation suit between AKP and CHP figures this week. Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak had announced Dec. 27 that he won a lawsuit against CHP MP Aykut Erdoğdu.

Albayrak won 33,000 Turkish Liras in compensation from Erdoğdu, after the court ruled that the CHP MP violated personal rights of the minister with allegations of corruption in the energy sector in 2015.