Русская версияTurkish President Abdullah Gul has pardoned former prime minister
Necmettin Erbakan on the grounds of ill health.
The 81-year-old was
placed under house arrest in May after a court ruled that his
Islamist Refah Welfare Party, which was banned in 1998, had misused
funds. Erbakan was initially convicted in 2002, but managed to
postpone the sentence four times on health grounds. He then secured
a retrial, but the court passed exactly the same sentence, which
the Appeals Court upheld in April. Erbakan briefly served as
Turkey's first Islamist prime minister until the secularist
military forced him to step down in 1997. Gul and Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and many of his legislators were members of
Erbakan's party.
(Deutsche Welle)
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