Akacan’s foreign travel ban lifted after agreeing to ‘financial guarantees’
A FOREIGN travel ban on Girne property developer Bulut Akacan, who is charged with assault in a restaurant in the town, has been lifted after he agreed to a bail bond of 300,000TL and a further court surety of 100,000TL.
Two of Akacan’s bodyguards, Vasif Kurbanov and Orçun Özorçun, were also charged with assaulting Erhan Başay and his friend, Zeki Asımoğlu, and have so far spent seven months in prison awaiting trial.
Akacan, who was freed on bail, previously applied for the travel ban to be lifted so that he could travel to Milan but that request was rejected by Girne Assize Court in May.
Now, however, following a second application, he is free to leave the country, with the court agreeing to return his travel documents in exchange for the financial guarantees that he will return to face justice at a trial scheduled for August 20.
The three men were arrested after a fracas on January 7 in which Mr Asımoğlu were seriously injured.
Mehmet Özorçun, the father of one of the bodyguards, this week hit out at his son’s near-sevenmonth detention, telling Kıbrıs, the Turkish-language sister newspaper of Cyprus Today: ”Orçun intervened to break up the fight and was not involved in any assault, as security camera footage shows, yet he has been imprisoned without conviction. My wife has been made ill over the situation our son is in but we still have faith that the court will eventually deliver justice and release him.
“My son is a teacher but because he could not find any jobs in that profession he worked for Bulut Akacan for three years.”
Akacan claimed in court last month that he had been asked for £1 million “blood money” to pay off one of his accusers, Mr Asımoğlu. Mr Başay previously withdrew his complaint against the businessman.