ISTANBUL: A Turkish court Wednesday overturned a controversial Twitter ban imposed after audio recordings spread via the social media site implicated Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a corruption scandal.

The Ankara administrative court ruled that the ban restricted freedom of expression, after the Turkish Bar Association put up a legal challenge against the government's move, saying it was without legal grounds and an arbitrary decision.

Twitter, meanwhile, said it had challenged the ban through local courts, “joining Turkish journalists and legal experts, Turkish citizens and the international community in formally asking for the ban to be lifted”.

Shutting down Twitter had sparked condemnation at home and abroad and turned into an embarrassment for Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) ahead of key local elections Sunday, the first polls since the graft scandal broke.

The ban has been widely circumvented by tech-savvy users. One picture making the rounds showed a cartoon mugshot of a weary-looking Twitter bird as a criminal suspect.

Erdogan remained defiant Wednesday and at a campaign rally accused his rivals of “speaking for companies like Twitter that do not abide by Turkish laws and treat Turkey as a third world country”.

Nevertheless, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters that “if the court gave such a decision, we will implement it”.

The Ankara court was set to inform telecommunications regulator TIB of its decision against the ban, and access to Twitter was expected to be restored later in the day, private television network NTV said.

The TIB has 30 days to appeal, but access would be restored independent of a second court ruling, NTV added.

'Can't silence technology'

The Twitter ban took effect on March 20 after Erdogan vowed to “wipe out”the online messaging service, saying it had failed to abide by Turkish laws.

Twitter said Wednesday it had faced three court orders and had in two cases already suspended content because it breached its own content rules, but challenged a third court order “instructing us to take down an account accusing a former minister of corruption”.

“This order causes us concern,” it said. “Poitical speech is among the most important speech, especially when it concerns possible government corruption.”It praised the “positive developments today concerning judicial review of this disproportionate and illegal administrative act of access banning the whole of Twitter”.

“We expect the government to restore access to Twitter immediately so that its citizens can continue an open online dialogue ahead of the elections to be held at the end of this week,” it added.

Erdogan's political opponents welcomed the court order.

“It was impossible for a totalitarian regime to silence the technology,”said Emrehan Halici, deputy head of the main opposition Republican People's Party.

“It was a shame to try to shut down Twitter. It has done nothing other than humiliate our country,” he told AFP following the court's decision. “More people than before have taken to Twitter after the ban.” Indeed many of Turkey's 10 million Twitter users managed to get around the official ban, tweeting via mobile phone text services or using virtual private networks and the Tor anonymising network.

Among those defying the ban were several cabinet members as well as President Abdullah Gul, who set himself publicly at odds with Erdogan by denouncing the move as “unacceptable”.

The ban came as social media networks have been flooded almost daily with leaked phone recordings in which Erdogan can allegedly be heard interfering in court cases, trade deals and media coverage.

The firebrand premier has denounced most of them as fakes and part of a “vile attack” by rivals, including a former ally, the US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, many of whose followers have held positions in the police force and judiciary.

Dozens of people were arrested in December as part of the graft probe, including the sons of three ministers, top businessmen and other key Erdogan allies.

Early this month, Erdogan warned that his government could also ban YouTube and Facebook after the local polls Sunday that are seen as a bellwether of the political mood.