Calgary imam yet to be charged after spending year in Turkish jail
For a year, Calgary imam Davud Hanci has spent most of his days in solitary confinement in Turkey, accused of being a terrorist linked to a failed 2016 coup attempt.
Last week, Hanci made his latest court appearance, which like many others, resulted in prosecutors — working for the government of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan — petitioning the judge for more time to gather evidence, leaving the dual-Canadian and Turkish citizen to languish in prison.
“They’re just holding him there and they don’t want to release him because they don’t have any real evidence,” said Malik Muradov, executive director of Calgary’s Intercultural Dialogue Institute and a friend of Hanci. “He’s just in limbo.”
Hanci was arrested on July 23, 2016, a week after a failed military coup, and accused in state media of being the right-hand man of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S. cleric and founder of the Hizmet, an Islamic social and educational movement, labelled a terrorist organization by the Erdogan government in December 2015.
He remains at a jail in Sakarya Province, east of Istanbul.
Family and associates of Hanci, who works as an imam for Correctional Service Canada, said he returned to his homeland last summer with his wife and two young sons to visit his father, who had been suffering with heart issues.
But he was soon swept up in mass arrests and was among the tens of thousands of Turkish citizens detained. Turkish media released photos of a man who looks like Hanci, suggesting he was from Pennsylvania and was working for Gulen. Family and friends have steadfastly maintained Hanci’s innocence.
Hanci has yet to be charged with any crimes.
Reached last week in Toronto, Hanci’s sister-in-law Ruveyda Durmus said Hanci’s wife is still struggling with the extended detention, and the family fears speaking publicly could be used against him by Turkish prosecutors.
“We’re starting to lose hope,” she said.
They’re just holding him there and they don’t want to release him because they don’t have any real evidence