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Turkey urged to heed European court ruling
on Kurdish rebel leader
11.11.2005
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ANKARA, Nov 10 (AFP)
- 19h21 - The Council of Europe expects Turkey to
heed a European human rights court ruling condemning
as unfair the 1999 trial of Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Ocalan, a Council official said here
Thursday.
The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR), a Council of Europe body, ruled in May that
the Turkish court which convicted Ocalan was not
impartial because it had included a military judge
during part of the trial.
It recommended a retrial for Ocalan, head of the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an armed militant
group seeking independence for the Kurdish minority
in southeastern Turkey.
"We expect that the decisions and requests of the
court will be honored," the Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly's president Rene van der
Linden told reporters here.
"I don't take positions on judicial cases... (but) I
hope the Turkish judiciary will follow up this
request."
The Council of Europe, linking 46 nations including
Turkey, is an east-west European human rights and
democracy watchdog.
Ankara has promised to respect the ECHR ruling, but
so far failed to clarify how it will proceed.
The ECHR also said in its May ruling Ocalan and his
lawyers had been denied sufficient time and
facilities to properly prepare their defense.
Ocalan's death sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment in 2002 after Turkey abolished capital
punishment as part of reforms to boost its bid to
join the European Union.
Officials have said a possible retrial will aim to
correct procedural flaws but cannot result in a
lighter punishment for Ocalan.
The PKK has been blacklisted as a terrorist
organization by Turkey, the European Union and the
United States.
AFP
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