Trial where Fatih Polat is accused of insulting the president adjourned
İstanbul - Third hearing of the trial where Evrensel daily’s Editor-in-Chief Fatih Polat faces “insulting the president” charges because of a column he wrote in 2017 was held at Bakırköy 31st Criminal Court of First Instance today.
The court announced that the expert opinions requested from Journalists’ Union of Turkey (TGS) and Turkish Journalists’ Association (TGC) regarding the journalist (Craig Shaw) and the web site Polat used as his news source in the concerned article during the previous hearing were received and added to the court file.
Journalist Fatih Polat stands trial for “insulting the president” charges because of a column published in Evrensel on 28 May 2017 titled “Do the respondents have anything to say about these allegations regarding the Erdoğan family?” Polat referred to an article on Erdoğan's offshore deals in Malta in this column.
Polat’s lawyer Devrim Avcı noted that at this stage they don’t request any other issues to be investigated and requested additional time to present their defense statement in writing. Taking the floor after his lawyer, Fatih Polat stated, “I repeat my previous statements. I will be presenting a detailed defense statement in the next hearing.”
The court granted Polat and his lawyers additional time and adjourned the trial until November 14th.