GUL WINS DEFAMATION LAWSUIT

Hurriyet
March 26 3009
Turkey

ANKARA – President Abdullah Gul won 1 Turkish Lira from main opposition
Republican People’s Party, or CHP, Ä°zmir deputy Canan Arıtman as
compensation for saying the president is of Armenian origin.

Arıtman said Gul was supporting a campaign launched by a group of
Turkish intellectuals to apologize to Armenians for mass killings in
1915 because he was favoring "the ethnic origins of his mother."

"Look into Gul’s ethnic origin from his mother’s side, and you will
see," she had said.

Arıtman said Gul had Armenian roots, which is why he did not openly
reject the apology campaign. "She tainted his statesman image, which
[Gul] fulfills with great responsibility and rigor, through false
statements on his mother’s ethnic origin," said Gul’s lawyer Omer
Kucuközcan.

Gul had responded earlier, saying his family is 100 percent Turk and
Muslim, which Arıtman countered by demanding a DNA test.