Ottoman Rule of Law and the Modern Political Trial: The Yildiz CaseIn 1876, a recently dethroned sultan, Abd laziz, was found dead in his cham bers, the veins in his arm slashed. Five years later, a group of Ottoman senior officials stood a criminal trial and were found guilty for complicity in his murder. Among the defendants was the world famous statesman former Grand Vizier and reformer Ahmed Midhat Pasa, a political foe of the autocratic sultan Abd lhamit II, who succeeded Abd laziz and ruled the empire for