Top Europe court calls for immediate release of Turkish philanthropist

Europe's top rights court on Tuesday urged Turkey to release businessman and philanthropist Osman Kavala, ruling his rights had been violated by more than two years in detention and rubbishing the charges against him.

Kavala, who funded civil society projects across the country and notably pushed for reconciliation between Turkey and its neighbour Armenia, was detained in 2017 on charges of seeking to overthrow the government.

His supporters have denounced the charges as politically motivated and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has personally attacked Kavala, calling him the agent in Turkey of US financier George Soros.

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that Turkey was unable to demonstrate that Kavala's "initial and continued pre-trial detention had been justified by reasonable suspicions based on an objective assessment of the acts attributed to him."
The court also found that the violations in the case "pursued an ulterior purpose... namely that of reducing Mr Kavala, and with him all human-rights defenders, to silence."