AN artist cleared of insulting the Turkish Prime Minister has fled the country amid reports the case against him has been reopened.

Michael Dickinson faced the prospect of up to two years in a Turkish jail after his collage showing Tayyip Erdogan as a dog led to a criminal prosecution.

He thought his ordeal was over when he was cleared by a court in Istanbul in September last year.

But the Durham-born artist has been forced to abandon his life in Turkey, his home for 24 years, and return to the North-East after a friend alerted him to a TV newsflash that reportedly said his acquittal had been quashed.

Mr Dickinson said: “I decided to go before they came to give me the summons.

“In my eyes it is finished. If they say they are going to do it again, when will it end? Or will it be two years in prison this time?”

Mr Dickinson was charged over a work, titled Good Boy, which showed Mr Erdogan as a dog with a stars and stripes leash and a nuclear missile for a tail. The artist says he was only “trying to make a political comment about the partnership with America”.

Mr Dickinson spent ten days in prison before a judge ruled that the collage was art and not insulting. Mr Dickinson first heard that the case may have been reopened on Sunday, June 21, while on his way to work, as a fortune teller on an island near Istanbul.

He said: “I was on my way to the island when I got a phone message saying had I seen anything. I could not believe it. I love Turkey. I enjoyed living there, but this thing has to finish. I do not enjoy Turkish jails.”

Mr Dickinson has learnt that the UK has an extradition treaty with Turkey, but is confident he will not be forced to return to face trial.

He is staying with a friend in Consett, County Durham, but plans to move to Durham City and stage a play he has written about the final days of Jesus, titled The Rich Young Man.

The Turkish Embassy in London did not respond to The Northern Echo’s request for comment last night.