{"id":22032,"date":"2010-09-16T04:58:31","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T02:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=22032"},"modified":"2014-01-05T20:45:43","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T18:45:43","slug":"turkish-court-rules-president-should-stand-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/09\/16\/turkish-court-rules-president-should-stand-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish court rules president should stand trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<h2>A Turkish court has ruled that President Abdullah Gul should  face trial over a funding scandal in the 1990s involving a now-defunct  Islamist party to which he belonged.<\/h2>\n<div class=\"byline\">\n<p>Published: 6:45AM BST 19 May 2009<\/p>\n<p>Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2010<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22059\" title=\"CZECH REPUBLIC EU TURKEY DIPLOMACY\" src=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/AbdullahGul_1405736c.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"288\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/AbdullahGul_1405736c.jpg 460w, https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/AbdullahGul_1405736c-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>The court overturned a prosecutor&#8217;s decision to  drop the case, ruling that Gul&#8217;s immunity as president did not cover  allegations dating to the period before he took office, Anatolia news  agency reported.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Authorities must now re-examine the case  that alleges falsification of documents and violation of laws governing  political parties.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The case threatens to exacerbate tensions between  Turkey&#8217;s ruling Islamist-rooted party and secularists, who accuse Mr Gul  and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, of seeking to erode the  country&#8217;s secular traditions.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling AKP has said it fully embraces secularism.<\/p>\n<p>Mr  Gul&#8217;s office denounced the court ruling in a statement and said a  previous judgement had cleared him of responsibility in the case  involving the Welfare Party, accused of embezzling money from the public  treasury in the 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The efforts in some circles to attempt to  present our president as a suspect when he is neither charged nor in  the process of being tried does not in any way result from good  intentions,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>The statement said Mr Gul could only be put on trial for treason.<\/p>\n<p>Government spokesman Cemil Cicek also disputed the ruling.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is unthinkable that presidents not be protected by immunity when deputies are,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Welfare  was outlawed in 1998 for undermining Turkey&#8217;s secular system, a year  after it relinquished power under pressure from the military.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><input id=\"gwProxy\" type=\"hidden\" \/> <input id=\"jsProxy\" onclick=\"if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}\" type=\"hidden\" \/><\/p>\n<p><input id=\"gwProxy\" type=\"hidden\" \/><input id=\"jsProxy\" onclick=\"if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}\" type=\"hidden\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Turkish court has ruled that President Abdullah Gul should face trial over a funding scandal in the 1990s involving a now-defunct Islamist party to which he belonged. Published: 6:45AM BST 19 May 2009 Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2010 The court overturned a prosecutor&#8217;s decision to drop the case, ruling that Gul&#8217;s immunity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":22059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[78,1344],"class_list":["post-22032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-ergenekon","tag-gul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}