President Abdullah Gül's pardon of former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan has returned the issue of the presidential pardon system to Turkey's agenda, also highlighting the fact that in comparison to the high number of pardons given by former President Ahmed Necdet Sezer, Gül has granted only a limited number.

While Gül has extended presidential pardons to only to three people, Sezer pardoned 269 individuals. Süleyman Demirel, the ninth president, granted pardons to 100 prisoners, whereas eighth President Turgut Özal pardoned 21 and seventh President Kenan Evren pardoned 27.

Furthermore, all criminals pardoned by Sezer had been convicted of terrorism, and three were later killed in a shootout with security forces in the Southeast. In contrast, Gül pardoned former Prime Minister Erbakan, who was convicted on charges of corruption and has been serving his time at home. To justify his pardon, Gül cited a report prepared by forensic medicine authorities showing that Erbakan's health was deteriorating.

Erbakan began serving his sentence at home in the district of Altınoluk near Balıkesir on May 26 and would have completed his two years, four months of house arrest on Sept. 23, 2010. Under the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), convicted suspects over 75 years of age can serve jail time at home provided the sentence is less than three years. The Supreme Court of Appeals in April of last year upheld a local court's decision to sentence Erbakan to serve the nearly two-and-a-half-year prison sentence at home.

Erbakan, who was also the leader of the now-defunct Welfare Party (RP), was convicted in a lawsuit known as the "lost trillion" case but was able to postpone serving his sentence by submitting medical reports to the court. The lost trillion case concerns the disappearance of more than TL 1 trillion in Treasury grants to the RP.

Gül pardoned two prisoners for health reasons. Derviş Uzun, a convicted murderer, later became paralyzed from a gunshot wound and appealed to the president for amnesty. Gül also granted a pardon to Mehmet Akatekin, convicted of killing a village headman, because he was later diagnosed as schizophrenic. Article 104 of the Turkish Constitution endows presidents with the right to provide pardons for reasons of illness and age.

Political ideology played an important role in Sezer's pardons, noted AK Party Samsun deputy Musa Uzunkaya, who provided details on some of the pardoned criminals during Sezer's presidency. Speaking to Today's Zaman, he stated: "All the people pardoned by Sezer belonged to far leftist groups and were convicted of terror crimes. Some returned to the mountains to perpetrate terrorism on the Turkish people; some were later captured in armed clashes."

Of the 269 criminals pardoned by Sezer, 40 belonged to the leftist terrorist organization the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), six to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), 28 to the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist (TKP-ML TİKKO), 28 to the Revolutionary Communist Union of Turkey (TİKB), 19 to the leftist group Dev-Sol, 17 to the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), 15 to the People's Liberation Party-Front of Turkey (THKP-C), three to the Revolutionary Party of Turkey (TDP), two to the Communist Workers Party of Turkey (TKİP), two to the TEKP Leninist Guerillas, one to the Revolutionary People's Party (DHP) and one to the Revolutionary Way (Dev-Yol). Sezer also pardoned seven murderers, three rapists, six gang members and four drug traffickers.

In Erbakan's case in which the court had ruled he could serve out his jail term at home, his lawyers appealed the ruling, and the Supreme Court of Appeals, which concluded its deliberations yesterday, ruled that Erbakan was to serve the rest of his 28-month jail sentence at home.

The arrest of Erbakan coincided with a time of heightened political tension in Turkey, where a secular elite, including judges and army generals, was at loggerheads with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government over the role of Islam in the European Union-candidate nation.

The country's chief prosecutor tried to close the AK Party, accusing it of anti-secular activity, but the Constitutional Court, in a decision announced in July, ruled not to shut down the party and only imposed a pecuniary punishment.

Ten years ago the Constitutional Court shut down Erbakan's then-ruling RP on grounds that it sought to overthrow Turkey's secular system and set up an Islamic state. The chief prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals accused leaders of the AK Party, which split from Erbakan's movement and came to power in 2002, of pursuing the same agenda. The prosecutor also sought a political ban on Gül and 70 AK Party politicians.

Todays Zaman