President again asks for compensation from CHP leader over ‘insult’

ANKARA

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Within days after a similar move, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has again taken main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to court for his repeated remarks describing Erdoğan as a “sham dictator,” and asked for compensation for non-pecuniary damages.

Erdoğan sued Kılıçdaroğlu for his speech given during his party’s parliamentary group meeting on Jan. 19 and for messages he posted on his official Twitter account the same day, the state run Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 20. The president asked for Kılıçdaroğlu to pay 100,000 Turkish Liras in non-pecuniary damages.

In their petition filed to the Ankara Civil Court of First Instance, Erdoğan’s lawyers argued that the aforementioned statements by Kılıçdaroğlu “constituted extraordinarily weighty insults with the purpose of attacking their client’s personality rights.” 

“Like has been the case with all the speeches he delivered recently, in his speech subject to the case and in his messages shared, the defendant has been insistently addressing our client as a ‘dictator and “a sham dictator…’ This situation is an open indication that the defendant is insistently acting with purpose of insult and in line with a certain goal,” the lawyers were quoted as saying in the petition by the Anadolu Agency.

On Jan. 18, Erdoğan first took Kılıçdaroğlu to court for his remarks describing him a “sham dictator,” and asked for compensation of 100,000 Turkish Liras for non-pecuniary damages.

The complaint filed by Erdoğan’s lawyers followed a probe launched by prosecutors earlier on Jan. 18 into Kılıçdaroğlu for the same remarks.