Jailed without a conviction since 2017, Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala says he feels like a tool in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s attempts to blame a foreign plot for domestic dissent against his mercurial rule.

A gaunt and bearded intellectual who once patronised culture and the arts, the 64-year-old Kavala makes a striking foil for Erdogan, a promoter of political Islam who has governed Turkey with an increasingly iron fist since 2003.

While tens of thousands have been jailed or stripped of their jobs on tenuous charges since Erdogan survived a coup attempt in 2016, it is Parisian-born Kavala whose fate is creating particular tensions in Turkey’s frayed ties with the West.

The Council of Europe, a human rights body Turkey joined in 1950, has warned it could launch the first infringement proceedings against Ankara if Kavala is not released by the end of the month.

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Facing a barrage of alternating charges, including espionage and attempts to topple the state, Kavala does not expect to walk out of his Istanbul prison cell any time soon.

“I think the real reason behind my continued detention is that it addresses the need of the government to keep alive the fiction that the (2013) Gezi protests were the result of a foreign conspiracy,” Kavala said in a written, English-language response to questions from AFP.

“Since I am accused of being a part of this conspiracy allegedly organised by foreign powers, my release would weaken the fiction in question and this is not something that the government would like.”

Read more: yahoo