The head of a top business association, along with his colleague, is facing fresh charges of “attempting to influence a fair trial” weeks after being indicted for “intervening” in Turkish politics.
Orhan Turan, chairperson of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSIAD), and Ömer Aras, a member of the association’s high advisory board, were indicted Monday over their remarks “attempting to manipulate the judiciary” at a TÜSIAD board meeting in February, the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Istanbul said in its indictment.
Turan and Aras made assessments regarding political, legal, judicial and administrative events whose contents they were unaware of, the prosecutors said.
According to the indictment, the businessmen sought to “create public perception” on issues such as the deadly fire at a ski resort in northwestern Bolu, earthquakes, the landslide in a gold mine in northern Erzincan, the appointment of trustees to certain municipalities on terrorism charges, the detention of a talent manager and the arrest of Istanbul’s former Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu.
Their remarks created an environment of anxiety and insecurity, the prosecutors said.
Emphasizing the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, the indictment said the principle of a fair trial and the rule of law were contravened with regards to the ongoing investigations.
The prosecutors demand Aras and Turan be sentenced to a judicial fine of not less than 50 days for “attempting to influence a fair trial in a sequential manner.”
Turan and Aras exceeded the limits of freedom of thought and expression and it is not possible to evaluate their words within the scope of the right to provide news or information, the indictment said.
The indictment was accepted by the same Istanbul court that oversees the trial in which Turan and Aras face a one to five years in prison over their attempts to influence the judiciary for their open criticism of ongoing investigations and criminal cases in a way that incites tensions.
Turan and Aras were briefly detained after a notorious TÜSIAD meeting in February. They were later released under judicial control and banned from traveling abroad.
Their statements are interpreted as an intervention in politics, especially by the supporters of the government. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has also lambasted the statements.
He said some businesses enjoyed huge profits under successive governments of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), yet they resorted to dirty opposition tactics. “We have no place for unlicensed politics or an unlicensed economy,” he said, urging them to either form a political party or join the existing ones.
He accused TÜSIAD of meddling in politics and undermining the government, noting it had “overstepped” and dismissed it as a remnant of the past that had thrived on economic privilege and political influence.
TÜSIAD, founded in the immediate aftermath of a covert coup in the 1970s, has faced accusations of acting together with coup leaders in the following decades, most notoriously during the 1997 coup. Critics say the business association belongs to the same mindset, justifying coups against democratically elected governments acting against their demands.