European rights court orders Turkey to free imprisoned businessman

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Turkey to immediately release Osman Kavala, an activist and philanthropist who has been detained in prison for almost a decade.

Kavala was sentenced to life behind bars in 2022 for charges related to nationwide protests in 2013 and a failed coup attempt three years later.

Since his initial arrest and detention in 2017, rights groups and Kavala himself have maintained that the charges against him are politically motivated.

The ECHR on Tuesday ruled that his continued detention was unlawful and that his rights to a fair trial, freedom of expression and association had been violated.

"The measures taken against the applicant... had been predominantly motivated by an ulterior purpose, namely, to punish him for his role in the Gezi Park demonstrations and for expressing his opinions as a human rights defender, and to silence him," the court said in its ruling , external .

The court also found that Kavala's aggravated life sentence amounted to "inhuman and degrading treatment".

Rights advocates and opposition groups say President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has increasingly weaponised the judiciary to target critics and rivals.

The court said Kavala's case had exposed a "systemic problem" in Turkey of the "detention and prosecution of political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists", adding that there were "structural shortcomings which affected the guarantees of independence and impartiality of the judiciary".