Skip to content

Turkey looking to jail Enes Kanter for insulting president

Wendell Cruz / USA TODAY Sports

Turkish prosecutors are attempting to hand New York Knicks center Enes Kanter a minimum four-year prison sentence for tweets he made in May and June 2016 insulting Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to The Associated Press.

Kanter has long been a vocal critic of Erdogan on social media and has publicly supported longstanding rival Fethullah Gulen, a 76-year-old Turkish cleric who self-exiled himself to the United States, and who Erdogan blamed for a failed military coup in Turkey in July 2016.

Kanter's support for Gulen has seen the Knicks player have his Turkish passport revoked, leading to him being stranded in a Romanian airport earlier this year. His father was also arrested by the country's government in June for what Kanter described as "my outspoken criticism of the ruling party."

Daily Newsletter

Get the latest trending sports news daily in your inbox