Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday fired back at Western criticism of the prison sentence that Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu received for insulting members of the High Election Board.
A court last week sentenced main opposition CHP member Ekrem Imamoğlu to more than two years in prison and barred him from holding office for the same length of time for insulting public officials in 2019.
Erdoğan told ruling AK Party lawmakers during a weekly parliamentary meeting that foreign powers were trying to use the case to manipulate Turkish politics ahead of the vote.
"Are you looking for political engineers?" Erdoğan asked AK Party members.
"Are you looking for foreigners who use an individual crime to manipulate politics in our country?"
The Turkish leader refrained from commenting about the conviction for three days.
He then distanced himself from the verdict and pointed out that it could still be appealed.
