The Demirören News Agency (DHA) reported that the trial of the 80-year-old actress Nilüfer Aydan (Aydan Canbula) started, where she is facing up to 8 years and 2 months of imprisonment on charges of “insulting the President successively” on account of the posts she shared on her social media account.
Nilüfer Aydan, who is standing trial without arrest, appeared at the first hearing of the case held at Istanbul Anatolian Courthouse 37th Criminal Court of Peace. Indicating that she wanted to plead in the presence of a lawyer to be appointed, Aydan also stated that she currently had high blood-pressure and that she would not be pleading.
80-YEAR-OLD ARTIST DID NOT PLEAD
Lawyers of the plaintiff, the Chairperson of Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the President of the Republic Tayyip Erdoğan, also filed a petition requesting to intervene. The lawyers who were not present at today’s hearing also presented a petition of excuse. The court decided to accept the request to intervene, and postponed the hearing with a view to remedy deficiencies.
The indictment drafted by the Istanbul Anatolian Chief Prosecutor’s Office claimed that Nilüfer Aydan committed the crime of “insulting the President” through the posts she shared on her social media account in 2016, 2017 and 2018. The indictment also noted that the suspect declared in her statement that she would sometimes give her telephone to young people as she was sitting in a park, asking them to type things for her; that she did not recall whether she shared the posts constituting the offence in question; and that the young people to whom she gave her telephone might have written the posts constituting the offence in question.
