ier penalties, that this would be applied directly against Said Nursi and his students. [^303]

[^303]:İbrahim Fakazlı, in Son Şahitler, v, 23.

Secondly, the following account of the governor of Afyon Prison, Mehmet Kayıhan, shows that it was a foregone conclusion that Bediuzzaman would be imprisoned:

Since it had been established by the government that Said Nursi was spreading religious propaganda, a policeman called Sabri Banazlı and some others were sent to Emirdağ in civil clothes. One day Banazlı came to the prison and said to me, 'We'll be bringing you someone called Bediuzzaman soon.' Then some time after this they brought Said Nursi to the prison. [^304]

[^304]:Mehmet Kayıhan, in Son Şahitler, i, 19.

That is, he was informing the governor that Bediuzzaman was going to be sent to the prison before there having been any court proceedings or other formalities.

Then once inside the prison, Bediuzzaman was kept in strict isolation. Rules benefiting prisoners were not applied to him. He was allowed no visitors. He was denied assistance with and information about the court proceedings, and to hinder his defence, the public prosecutor held up giving him the Ankara Experts' report for six or seven months, on which his own forty-six-page indictment was in part based. [^305]

[^305]:Nursi, Şualar, 339, 433 (Eng. tr.: Rays, 425, 514).

In addition, the prosecutor abused his office in various ways in efforts to indict Bediuzzaman and his students, and drag out the proceedings. For instance, it is said he was involved in the creation of disturbances within the prison by means of various prisoners in the hope of implicating the Risale-i Nur Students. There was a revolt while they were there, but none of the Students was involved. [^306] And he repeatedly delayed the proceedings, like, for example, holding up the sending of all the documents of the case to the Appeal Court for three months.

[^306]:Ibid., 423 (Eng. tr.: Rays, 507-8).

After the preliminary proceedings, the hearings of the case began some four months after their arrest and continued for six and a half months. Thirty of the Students were tried not under arrest, and a fluctuating number, nineteen at one point including Bediuzzaman were inside the prison. The decision reached by the court finding Bediuzzaman guilty on some of the charges in the face of all the evidence showed clearly its purpose. Just as, although the previous 'committee of experts' had declared the Risale-i