British diplomatic links to Turkey will come under pressure this week as a dispossessed media proprietor faces extradition to Ankara for financial offences allegedly related to a military coup.
Akın İpek, whose newspapers and TV stations have been confiscated by Turkish officials for criticising President Recep Tayip Erdoğan’s regime, will appear alongside two other men at Westminster magistrates court on Tuesday. The case against İpek and his co-accused follows demands for the UK to send back fugitives supposedly involved with the Fethullah Gülen movement, which the Turkish government claims was responsible for the 2016 uprising against Erdoğan.
In November, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, met the British prime minister, Theresa May, and asked her to extradite those supposedly associated with the failed coup.Tens of thousands of Turkish lawyers, journalists, civil servants, judges, soldiers and others have been imprisoned or lost their jobs since 2016. MPs on the foreign affairs select committee have accused Erdoğan of exploiting the failed coup to purge opponents and suppress human rights.
The case is expected to put further strains on relations between fellow Nato members at a time when the UK is courting business partners outside the EU. Recent extradition requests from Turkey have been refused on the grounds that the country’s prison system is unsafe.(theguardian)…[+]
