A 13-year-old boy who shouted, “May God curse you,” as the prime minister’s car was passing by in the Aegean province of Aydın has been charged with “insulting an official based on his occupation.”
If found guilty, he faces at least a year in prison.
The boy, who admitted shouting the remark at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, filed a complaint accusing the prime minister of assaulting him.
In the indictment filed against the boy, the prosecutor accused him of shouting at the prime minister twice as Erdoğan was passing in front of him in his official car. Arguing that the boy knew right from wrong, the prosecutor has asked for at least a year in prison.
The boy’s lawyer meanwhile filed a complaint against Erdoğan, saying that after the 13-year-old shouted at him, the prime minister had asked his bodyguards to bring the boy to him. The lawyer said the boy had said what he did because he blamed the prime minister for his father’s bankruptcy.
“My client was forced into a bus, where the suspect [the prime minister], who perceived what my client said as an insult, asked why he had done so,” the lawyer said in the complaint. “My client told him he didn’t like him. Meanwhile, the suspect’s hand was on the neck of my client. The suspect then squeezed the soft part of his neck and pushed him away, telling the guards to throw him out.”
The lawyer asked the prosecutor’s office to investigate the prime minister for assaulting the boy.
