Turkey's Islamist-rooted ruling party narrowly escaped being banned Wednesday for undermining secularism as the Constitutional Court decided to punish it with financial sanctions instead.
   
Six of the court's 11 judges voted in favour of closing down the Justice and Development Party (AKP) -- just one short of the seven required to implement a ruling, court president Hasim Kilic said.
   
But he added that the court was still sending the party a "serious warning" by cutting half of the treasury funds it was entitled to this year.
   
The ruling appeared to offer a compromise solution to Turkey's political problems, sparing the country the sort of turmoil a full ban might have unleashed, while also urging the AKP to toe the line.
   
"I hope the party in question will evaluate this outcome very well and get the message it should get," Kilic said.
   
The judges who supported the financial sanctions said the AKP had become a "focal point" of anti-secular activities as the country's chief prosecutor argued, "but not that serious," he said.
   
The AKP, which won a resounding re-election victory last year, was quick to hail the court decision as a victory for democratic principles.
   
"With this decision, the bar of democracy has been lifted up," parliamentary speaker Koksal Toptan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.
   
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party was accused of seeking to replace Turkey's secular system with a regime based on Sharia, or Koranic law.
   
Chief prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya had also called for the court to bar President Abdullah Gul, Erdogan and 69 other AKP officials from party politics for five years.
   
Closing down the AKP, which dominates parliament and is still the country's most popular party, could have sparked political chaos, wrecked Turkey's EU accession talks and hit the economy.
   
The case was seen as the latest round in a bitter power struggle between the AKP and hardline secularist forces, including the army, the judiciary and academia, which has simmered since the party nominated Gul for president in April 2007.
   
The AKP had rejected the charges against it as politically motivated and said it was the target of a attempted "judicial coup".
   
The prosecutor had argued that the secular Turkish republic was in grave danger and accused the AKP of using the advantages of democracy to achieve a government model "which involves violence."
   
His key argument was an AKP-sponsored constitutional amendment passed in February that aimed to abolish a ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities.
   
The Constitutional Court ruled that the amendment violated secular principles and scrapped it in a separate case in June.
   
The prosecutor also cited attempts by AKP municipalities to ban or restrict alcohol sales and promote religious education and Islamist lifestyle.
   
Most of his other evidence comprised statements by Erdogan and other AKP members in favour of broader religious freedoms.
   
A court rapporteur had advised the judges in a non-binding assessment to acquit the AKP on the grounds that its actions fall under the scope of freedom of expression.
   
The AKP, a coalition of religious conservatives, pro-business liberals and mainstream centre-right politicians, first came to power in 2002 and won praise for its pro-EU, business-friendly policies.
   
But since its re-election last year it has faced increasing criticism for seeking to enhance its religious image at the expense of EU-oriented reforms, fuelling suspicions it has a hidden Islamist agenda.