The chief advisor of former President Abdullah Gül, Ahmet Sever, is facing a prison sentence of 14 to 28 months on charges of insulting current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief advisor Mustafa Varank.
An investigation launched against Sever by Istanbul public prosecutor Umut Tepe has been concluded with the preparation of an indictment.
In the indictment Sever is accused of insulting and humiliating Varank in an interview published in the Cumhuriyet daily on May 9.
The investigation into Sever was initiated after Varank’s lawyer filed a criminal complaint against him due to his remarks about Varank in the interview.
Sever claimed in the interview that it was Varank who was giving orders to Twitter trolls linked to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) who are notorious for their written attacks on critics of the AKP and Erdoğan. Former President Gül was also under attack from those trolls.
Sever sparked a huge controversy last summer when he published a book titled “Abdullah Gül ile 12 Yıl” (12 Years with Abdullah Gül) about his years as Gül’s advisor in which he talked about conflicts between Erdoğan and Gül and how Gül was prevented from running for the presidency again by Erdoğan.