Turkish law professor urges Erdoğan to return fraud penalty bill to Parliament

Prof. Dr. İzzet Özgenç, a criminal law professor and member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences, publicly criticized a new amendment to Article 158 of the Turkish Penal Code that would halve penalties for individuals who provide bank, credit‑card, payment‑service or crypto‑asset account details to facilitate fraud. In a social‑media post addressed to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Özgenç argued that the clause is technically flawed and lacks a legal basis, contending that the reduced sentence clashes with the individualized sentencing rules set out in Article 61 of the Penal Code. He warned that the amendment could create uncertainty about when the discount applies and that those who knowingly share account information should not be treated as merely “helping hands” but as co‑perpetrators. Özgenç called on the President to send the law back to the Grand National Assembly for revision before it is published in the Official Gazette.

The amendment, numbered 7589 and passed in the Assembly on 16 July 2026, expands the definition of “account” to include various financial service providers and aims to target people known in the media as “IBAN victims.” No official details of the President’s signature or Gazette publication have been released yet.