An Istanbul court has handed down a 10 month conditional suspended sentence to a man who cut a tree belonging to his neighbor on the grounds that the tree was spoiling his garden. If the defendant does not commit a similar crime in the following years, his sentence will not be executed.

The neighbor filed a complaint against 62 year-old B.K. for cutting down the fruit tree without his permission. He said in his testimony, "I had given him permission to prune the tree. But he did not prune it, instead he cut it off from its root. We are still neighbors but I am pressing charges against him."

The defendant B.K., on the other hand, claimed that he did not chop down the tree.

The judge, after believing that the defendant would not again commit a crime of such a nature, suspended the 10 month jail sentence.