The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on August 26 again ordered Turkey to immediately release businessman, activist and philanthropist Osman Kavala, 68, who has been in prison for almost a decade.

Turkey typically ignores ECtHR rulings that it does not like and then does not suffer any meaningful consequences thereafter. In 2019, for instance, the Strasbourg-based court demanded Kavala be freed without delay, saying his detention was arbitrary and politically motivated. Ankara did not implement the ruling. In fact, subsequent to that ruling, Kavala was acquitted in February 2020, but within hours was rearrested on new charges that said he was linked to the failed military coup that took place in Turkey in 2016.

Kavala was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 2022 for charges related to the nationwide “Gezi” protests in 2013, which prosecutors claimed he helped to finance, and the failed coup attempt three years later.

In its new ruling, the ECtHR said that the continued detention of Paris-born, UK-educated Kavala was unlawful and that his rights to a fair trial, freedom of expression and association had been violated.

"The measures taken against the applicant... had been predominantly motivated by an ulterior purpose, namely, to punish him for his role in the Gezi Park demonstrations and for expressing his opinions as a human rights defender, and to silence him," the court said in its ruling.

Kavala's aggravated life sentence amounted to "inhuman and degrading treatment", it added.

The court added that Kavala's case revealed a "systemic problem" in Turkey as regards the "detention and prosecution of political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists", adding that there were "structural shortcomings which affected the guarantees of independence and impartiality of the judiciary".

Opponents of Turkey’s Erdogan administration say it has weaponised the judiciary. It responds that Turkish courts are independent.

In a statement on the ECtHR ruling, Amnesty International's Eve Geddie said: "This obstruction of justice must end. Turkey's authorities, including judicial and prosecutorial, must act to free Osman Kavala immediately and unconditionally."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has on occasion claimed that Kavala is an agent of Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros.

“Osman Kavala has been unlawfully imprisoned for nearly nine years,” said Aisling Reidy, senior legal adviser at New York-based Human Rights Watch.

“The European Court has now demanded his immediate release three times. It is vital that the Council of Europe [Europe’s top human rights body, of which Turkey is a member] and its member states act to ensure that the Court’s judgments are respected and that Osman Kavala – finally – is freed.”