The Kurdish politician suffered from chest tightness and difficulty breathing, symptoms similar to a heart attack, and fainted in his cell on November 26, his sister and one of his lawyers Aygul Demirtas tweeted on Monday.

She added that Turkish authorities had barred Demirtas from receiving adequate medical treatment for almost a week.

Following her tweets, Demirtas was taken to a hospital late on Monday and released from the hospital on the same day after cardiology, neurology and gastroenterology experts detected no life-threatening pathology, the head physician of Trakya University’s medical faculty hospital said.

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) said it was sending a delegation to the prison to visit Demirtas and investigate his situation, Ahval reported.

The former HDP co-chair has been jailed since November 2016 on multiple terrorism charges related to alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, an outlawed group that has fought for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey since 1984.

Demirtas and the HDP say the Turkish government has used its control of the country’s judiciary to remove a political rival. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in November 2018 that the politician’s pre-trial detention was a political act and demanded his release, but Turkish courts refused to implement the decision. A high criminal ruled to release Demirtas pending trial in October, but he has remained in prison due to his conviction in another case.

Reporter’s code: 50101