Jailed businessman and philanthropist Osman Kavala has said he could spend more time in court since an investigation has been launched into his alleged role in a failed 2016 coup.
Kavala has been in pre-trial detention for 624 days for allegedly orchestrating the 2013 Gezi Park protests, which were deemed by Turkish officials as an attempt to overthrow the government.
“The court’s arrest ruling is based on these two separate investigations. But we have no idea about this second case. No indictment has appeared in 20 months,” Kavala wrote back to Şirin Payzın, a journalist from the T24 news website who asked questions via Kavala’s lawyers.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has several times denounced Kavala’s alleged role in the Gezi protests, adding that Hungarian-American businessman George Soros was also one of the financiers of the protests.
“I was one of the board members at [the Turkish branch of] the Open Society Foundation. When George Soros visited our country, I had meetings with him along with other board members. But I had no special relationship with him other than being a member of his foundation,” Kavala said, adding that they had overlapping ideas in common.
In his defense at his first hearing Kavala argued that Soros should have been sought for testimony by the Turkish prosecutor as the indictment tried to link Soros with the Gezi Park protests.
Meanwhile, Kavala has said the worst consequence of being in detention was hospital visits because on every occasion the officials handcuffed him.
“Those who see me like that must be thinking what evil I committed,” he added.