Istanbul (dpa) - Hopes dimmed for the possible release of jailed Turkish intellectual Osman Kavala after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday used a speech to accuse him of funding protests critical of government policy in 2013.

"We can never find alignment with the financier of the Gezi incident, this Kavala," said Erdogan in an online speech to members of his mildly Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Kavala was arrested in November 2017 on charges of trying to destabilize the government with his support of the 2013 protests. He was acquitted of those charges in February, but quickly put back in prison when new charges linking him to an attempted coup in 2016 were issued. New charges of espionage linked to the Gezi protests were also written up.

The European Court of Human Rights has demanded his release.

There had been some hope for his release after Erdogan recently promised judicial reforms. Those gained strength when AKP co-founder Bulent Arinc called for Kavala's release in an interview last week.

His next court date is December 18.

Erdogan says the Gezi protests were an international conspiracy. They were actually launched by popular anger about a building project in central Istanbul that turned into broader protests by people accusing the government of authoritarian tendencies.