A Turkish court on Monday overturned a non-prosecution ruling in a lawsuit against Canan Kaftancıoğlu, the provincial head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Diken newspaper reported.
The lawsuit against CHP’s top Istanbul official on charges of “praising and encouraging crime,” was filed in April by Fahrettin Altun, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director, over construction work on Altun’s property in Istanbul.
The CHP had filed a legal complaint against Altun on Apr. 13 after the CHP-run municipality in the city’s Üsküdar district reported illegal construction carried out on the aide’s land and shared photos of the construction site on social media.
Altun responded with his own complaint against Kaftancıoğlu after she defended the municipality’s actions on Twitter.
Istanbul prosecutors dismissed the case against Kaftancıoğlu in September.
The court on Monday cited the presence “sufficient evidence for trial,’’ in the case against the CHP Istanbul chair, Diken said.
Kaftancıoğlu became a rising star in the CHP after the March 31, 2019 local elections, and is credited as the person behind the CHP’s victory in Istanbul, which had been controlled by Islamist parties since 1994.
Ahval