Nordic Monitor

22) Aksar was nominated to be a judge at the ECtHR in 2017 by the Erdoğan government, but experts from the Advisory Panel of the Council of Europe rejected his application and said he lacked the necessary qualifications to be a judge at the European rights court.

21) On Dec. 21, 2018 Turkey’s nominee received 101 votes to serve a two-year term at the UN court after political deal was made with other UN members. #Erdogan is now in a position to influence international cases as well.

20) After Judge Akay who served with a distinction at the UN had been pushed out in this legal/political scheme, the Erdoğan government nominated partisan academic Yusuf Aksar to the UN court and lobbied other members of the UN to secure his seat.

19) Turkey has provided supporting material in this regard..& Judge Akay does not currently meet the qualification requirements for judges of the Mechanism under article 9, paragraph 1, of the statute and, consequently, cannot be considered for reappointment,” Guterres claimed

18) “The Government of Turkey has informed the Secretariat that Judge Aydin Sefa Akay is no longer eligible to be a judge in Turkey and does not possess the qualifications for appointment to the highest judicial office in Turkey under the applicable law", @antonioguterres said.

17) Although Judge Akay was wrongfully convicted on false charges and with no evidence of terrorism whatsoever, UN Secretary-General António Guterres dropped the ball and sided with the Turkish government.

16) Using false conviction as a pretext, the Erdoğan government sent a letter to the UN claiming that Akay could no longer function as a judge because of his conviction and submitted court papers to that effect.

14) In June 2017 a Turkish court falsely convicted Akay on terrorism charges and sentenced him to seven years, six months in prison. He was released pending appeal and would likely return to jail when his conviction gets upheld by partisan Turkish judiciary.

12) Erdoğan balked at the request. The demand to release a top UN judge is “void,” Turkey said, claiming International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals’ request exceeded its limits of authority “by interfering in the independent judiciary of Turkey.”

10) UN ordered #Turkey to cease all legal proceedings against Judge Akay and to take all necessary measures to ensure his release from detention, no later than 14 February 2017, so that he can resume his judicial functions in the case of Prosecutor v. Augustin Ngirabatware.

8) He was alleged to have links to the Gülen movement when he described himself as a Freemason and testified that he downloaded the app from the Google Play Store to communicate with colleagues.

7) Judge Akay was accused of having a smart phone application called ByLock, a publicly available messaging application that the Erdogan government criminalized when there was no basis for such a move under Turkish law.