ANKARA: A famous Turkish singer and actress has been sentenced to 10 monthsin prison for insulting President Tayyip Erdogan during a performance in2016, the Hurriyet newspaper said on Thursday.

Singer Zuhal Olcay was accused of changing the lyrics of one of her songsby substituting Erdogan’s name into it and making an insulting hand gesturewhile singing, Hurriyet said.

Video from the performance showed Olcay changing her song’s lyrics to read“Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it’s all empty, it’s all a lie, life will end oneday and you’ll say ‘I had a dream’,” Hurriyet said.

In her testimony, Olcay rejected the accusations, saying she had usedErdogan’s name because it fit the rhyme scheme and had no “ulterior orinsulting motive”. She said the hand gesture was aimed at an audiencemember.

Olcay was previously fined 10,620 lira ($2,708) for “insulting a publicservant” in 2010, according to the state-run Anadolu agency.

Insulting the president is a crime punishable by up to four years in prisonin Turkey.