LeMan trial postponed to February 2

The third hearing of the case filed against six employees of the weekly humor magazine LeMan due to the cartoon they published about the war in Gaza was held today at the Istanbul 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance.

In the investigation launched due to the cartoon in the issue dated June 26, 2025, which allegedly depicted prophets, five magazine employees were arrested and later released. At the previous hearing of the case filed on the charge of "publicly inciting the public to hatred and hostility through the press", the file was sent to the prosecutor's office for the preparation of the opinion on the merits.

LeMan's editor-in-chief Aslan Özdemir and the defendant's lawyers attended the hearing. Muhammed Hasan Medineli, whose request to intervene in the previous hearing was not accepted by the court, also wanted to attend the hearing and sit on the complainant's side. The judge reminded that Medinali's request was rejected and asked him to be removed from the courtroom.

At the hearing, it was reported that the rogatory procedures carried out against Tuncay Akgün could not be completed due to lack of documents. The defendant's lawyers demanded that the deficiencies be corrected. Editor-in-Chief Aslan Özdemir said in court, "I have no declaration."

The court decided to continue the proceedings after the deficiencies in the letter rogatory documents were eliminated. The court ruled that the prosecutor's office's request for separation of the file from Tuncay Akgün be evaluated in the next hearing and postponed the hearing to 2 February 2027 at 13.30.