A Turkish court on Friday ruled to combine the two cases against philanthropist Osman Kavala, who has been detained more than three years without conviction, after an appeals court overturned his acquittal in one of them.
Immediately after he and eight others were acquitted last February in a case related to nationwide Gezi Park protests in 2013, Kavala was ordered jailed pending trial over charges related to a 2016 coup attempt. The acquittal verdict was also appealed.
Last month, the appeals court ruled to overturn the Gezi-related verdicts because some evidence was excluded and that it should be joined with the other case against Kavala.
On Friday, the court handling the coup-related case agreed to the combination and rejected Kavala's request to be released, extending his detention since late 2017 by nearly four months.
Kavala is accused of espionage and attempting to overthrow the constitutional order in the coup-related case. He denies all charges.
"The prosecution seeks to create a certain perception by blending a number of conspiracy theories and accusations as if they were proving one another," Kavala told the court, adding the accusations were baseless.
The overturning of the Gezi ruling will allow the "extension of the espionage charges which are collapsing" as well as the duration of his detention, Kavala, 63, said.
Critics say Turkey's judiciary has been exploited to punish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's perceived opponents and that Kavala's case is symbolic of a crackdown on dissent. The president and his ruling AK Party say the courts are independent.
The European Court of Human Rights called for Kavala's release in late 2019, saying his detention aimed to silence him. The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers have repeatedly called on Turkey to implement the ruling.
Kavala's lawyer Tolga Aytore told the court none of the witnesses had any information supporting the accusations.
"Whenever the prosecution process gets to a stage where (Kavala's) release is possible, we face something else. It is very upsetting that our justice system is getting used to this," he said.
Some of the defendants in the Gezi trial were also acquitted in a previous case, meaning they will be tried for a third time over the 2013 protests. The first hearing in the retrial is scheduled for May 21.
