The European Parliament strongly condemned, on Thursday, the life imprisonment sentence once morest Turkish businessman Osman Kavala, and said that Turkey had thus “eliminated all hope” of resuming the process of joining the European Union.
MEPs denounced the “unjust, unlawful and arbitrary nature of the detention” of Kavala since the end of 2017 and demanded his “immediate and unconditional release”.
Kavala was sentenced to life in prison on 25 April following being convicted of “attempting to overthrow the government” of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In their decision, the European MPs said that “by deciding in public to defy the binding rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (of which Turkey is a member) in the Osman Kavala case and in other cases, the Turkish government has deliberately extinguished all hopes of reopening the accession process or opening New chapters and completion of open chapters.
The non-binding text voted on at a plenary session in Strasbourg expresses the strong condemnation issued at the end of April by European Foreign Minister Josep Borrell, who expressed his deep regret over this ruling.
Osman Kavala, 64, denied the charges once morest him and denounced a “judicial assassination” targeting him under pressure from the Turkish president.
At the end of March, Erdogan, who seeks to play the role of mediator between Russia and Ukraine, asked the EU to “quickly open the chapters of accession negotiations … without being drawn into narrow calculus.”
Negotiations on Turkey’s possible membership in the European Union, which began in 2005, have stalled due to high tensions between Ankara and Brussels over several files.
Relations between Brussels and Ankara were strained following the failed coup in July 2016 and the crackdown on opponents and journalists following that.
