On Friday, April 22, as Turkey’s finance minister, Nurettin Nebati, brushed elbows with financiers in New York, and as foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu planned a trip to visit his US counterpart in Washington, Osman Kavala gave the final statement in a trial that would determine whether he spends the rest of his life in prison.

Seated on a white plastic chair in a pink isolation cell, Kavala addressed hundreds of journalists, lawyers, diplomats, and human rights advocates. He looked reserved, if gaunt, not fully betraying the four and a half years he has spent behind bars, largely in pretrial detention. He was measured in his defense, if disparaging of the proceedings. He said that he “[did] not expect [his statement] to have any impact on the judgment,” calling the trial “completely deformed,” and his detention an “act of deprivation of liberty by abuse of power.” Human rights organizations and governments around the world agree.

As president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in Ankara the following Monday, Kavala was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment on charges of attempting to overthrow the government. Seven other defendants — Mücella Yapıcı, Çiğdem Mater, Hakan Altınay, Mine Özerden, Can Atalay, Yiğit Ali Ekmekçi, and Tayfun Kahraman — were each sentenced to eighteen years in prison. As Erdoğan and Guterres announced their planned cooperation, Tayfun Kahraman tearfully said goodbye to his toddler daughter in the hallways of Istanbul’s heavy penal court.