Angela Merkel came under fire from free speech campaigners yesterday after agreeing to a demand from Turkey that a German comedian who accused President Erdogan of bestiality in a TV broadcast should be prosecuted.

In a surprise decision that split her government, she said that judges would now have to decide whether Jan Böhmermann should be convicted under rarely used legislation against “insulting a foreign head of state”.

The German chancellor was immediately lambasted for “kowtowing” to the Turkish president, whose support she badly needs to implement an EU agreement to take back illegal migrants caught entering Europe.

She had been put on the spot by Böhmermann, 35, when he provocatively mocked the Turkish leader on the German public broadcaster ZDF on March 31, falsely…