A German comedian under investigation by prosecutors for mocking Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday of "filleting" him and serving him to a despot for tea in his first public comments since the row broke.
Merkel drew heavy criticism for allowing German prosecutors to pursue a case against satirist Jan Boehmermann after he recited a poem on television in March suggesting Erdogan engaged in bestiality and watched child pornography.
After weeks of silence, Boehmermann pulled no punches in an interview released in part on Tuesday by Die Zeit weekly.
"The chancellor must not wobble when it's a matter of freedom of opinion," he told Die Zeit in the interview, which will be published in full on Wednesday.
"But instead, she filleted me, served me for tea to a highly strung despot and made me into a German Ai Weiwei," he said, referring to the Chinese dissident artist.
