Turkey seeks prison sentence for former Erdoğan legal adviser, penal code author
On April 28, 2026, Turkish Minute reported that the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office is seeking up to two years in prison for prominent legal scholar and penal code author İzzet Özgenç — a former legal adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — over twelve 2023 social media posts directed at former Court of Appeals president Mehmet Akarca, on charges of “publicly insulting a public official.” The case illustrates how Turkey’s expansive insult statutes are being deployed by prosecutors against high-profile members of the legal profession themselves, narrowing the space for intra-legal critique. The prosecution adds to a pattern in which Turkish prosecutors function as enforcers of regime sensitivities rather than neutral law-appliers.