Turkey’s top court rules to keep Kurdish politician with dementia in jail

Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled out a request for a stay of execution of Kurdish politician Aysel Tugluk, who was diagnosed with dementia last year, BBC Turkish reported.

The former deputy co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) was arrested in 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “belonging to a terrorist organization,”

Although Kocaeli University diagnosed Tugluk with "chronic and progressive dementia" and concluded that she was not fit to stay in prison, the Turkish Forensic Medicine Institute (ATK) refused to give the necessary approval by saying she has "mild cognitive impairment" and has "full criminal liability."

While rejecting the plea for her release, Turkey’s top court ordered that she receive regular neurological and psychiatric treatment in hospital.

Tugluk's lawyers argued in a statement that there were contradictions in the ruling and claimed that many documents in the file showed the worsening health of Tugluk.