Turkey seeks jail term for NBA player for insulting Erdogan
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Turkey’s state-run news agency says prosecutors are seeking more than four years in prison for NBA player Enes Kanter on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Anadolu Agency says an indictment prepared by the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office accuses the New York Knicks player of insulting the president in a series of tweets he posted in May and June 2016.
Kanter said he wasn’t concerned and continued his criticisms of Erdogan, saying, “That dude is a maniac.”
“That stuff really don’t bother me because I’m used to it,” Kanter said after the Knicks practiced Wednesday in New York.
“I think it’s just nothing to me, man. I’m in America. I’m good and my focus right now is just going out there, playing basketball, have fun with my teammates and just winning and just thinking about playoffs.”
Kanter cannot return to Turkey because his passport has been canceled. He would be tried in absentia.
The player is a vocal supporter of Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based cleric blamed by Turkey for last year’s failed military coup.
Kanter was detained in Romania on May 20. He said he was able to return to the United States after American officials intervened.
He said his family remains in Turkey and he is concerned for them – he said his father at one point was jailed for a week – but he downplayed the situation otherwise.
“I was like, that’s it, only four years? All the trash I’ve been talking?” Kanter said. “I promise you guys, it doesn’t really bother me even bother me a little bit, because my thing is just going out there and playing basketball.”
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AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney in Greenburgh, New York, contributed to this report.