Turkey's highest court has barred a popular Islamist politician from running for a seat in parliament due to his 1999 conviction for inciting religious hatred. 

The decision deals a blow to the hopes of Recep Tayyip Erdogan - who heads the Justice and Development Party - of becoming Turkey's next prime minister. The general elections are in 2004. A former mayor of Istanbul, Mr. Erdogan regularly does well in public opinion polls. 

He was jailed for four months in 1999 on charges of inciting religious hatred for reciting a poem with a pro-Islamic message. He was banned from politics for five years, but a Constitutional Court decision later allowed him to return to politics. 

However, the court ruled Friday, that Mr. Erdogan's conviction makes him ineligible for parliamentary membership. The court is also quoted as ruling that a 1999 amnesty law does not apply to Mr. Erdogan's case. Mr. Erdogan previously argued his sentence fell into the scope of the amnesty law. 

In January, the Constitutional Court ordered Mr. Erdogan's party to remove him from its board of founding members. 

Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters. 

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