Erdogan files complaint over German decision to drop case against comedian

BERLIN (Reuters) - A lawyer for Tayyip Erdogan has filed a complaint about a German decision to drop a case against a comedian accused of offending the Turkish president with an obscene poem, prosecutors said.

The chief prosecutor in Koblenz will review the files on the case and rule on the complaint, the prosecutor's office in the western city of Mainz said on Monday.

Prosecutors announced last week they had not found sufficient evidence to suggest any criminal offense had been committed by comedian Jan Boehmermann or anyone else involved in making or broadcasting the piece.

Erdogan had filed an initial complaint in March after Boehmermann read out a poem on a satirical show suggesting Erdogan engaged in bestiality and watched child pornography.

The German Association of Journalists (DJV) on Monday criticized Erdogan's decision to file a further complaint. "The Turkish president is not only an active enemy of press freedom, but also a bad loser," DJV head Frank Ueberall said.

The case has damaged ties between Ankara and Berlin, which were strained further in June after Germany's parliament passed a resolution that declared the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces to be a genocide.

Germany's criminal code forbids insults of foreign leaders but prosecutors can decide whether to press charges. Germany's ruling coalition plans to rescind the law later this year.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Michael Nienaber; editing by Andrew Roche)

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