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STRASBOURG, May 11 (AFP) - 4h30 - The European
Court of Human Rights will deliver Thursday its
ruling on an appeal by jailed Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Ocalan that could lead to his retrial in
Turkey where he is serving a life-sentence.
A possible retrial for Ocalan, considered public
enemy number one after leading a separatist campaign
which killed 37,000 people, would be seen as a test
of Turkey's resolve to embrace European standards as
it prepares for membership talks with the European
Union on October 3.
The Strasbourg-based court is set to deliver its
final verdict on a complaint by Ocalan against the
legal procedures used in his 1999 trial and the
conditions of his solitary detention on the Turkish
prison island of Imrali in the Marmara Sea in the
northwest of the country.
In March 2003, the European court, which upholds the
European convention on human rights, agreed with
Ocalan that his 1999 sentence came "at the outcome
of an unfair trial" and amounted to inhumane
treatment.
But it rejected his complaint about the conditions
of his detention and the circumstances of his
arrest. Both the Turkish authorities and Ocalan
appealed against the rulings.
Ocalan, 56, has been the sole inmate on Imrali since
his conviction as leader of the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) which has led a bloody armed
campaign for self-rule in south-eastern Turkey.
He was sentenced to death for treason but his
sentence was later commuted to life in prison on
October 3, 2002 after Turkey scrapped the death
penalty in a bid to ease its entry into the European
Union.
Should the European court rule in favour of Ocalan
again, Turkey could be asked to review the sentence
of the rebel leader.
Four Turkish parliamentarians, including Kurdish
rights activist Leyla Zana, convicted of membership
of the PKK in 1994 and sentenced to 15 years in
prison, were given a retrial in 2003 after the
European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2001 that
their original trial was unfair.
A possible retrial for Ocalan could prove a headache
for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's
government's European ambitions and leave it open to
fierce public and opposition criticism.
In case of a demand for retrial, most experts say
the government would have to amend a 2003 law which
allows for retrials for those whose convictions have
been condemned by the European Court of Human
Rights, but includes restrictions leaving Ocalan out
of its scope.
The PKK, founded by Ocalan in 1978, waged an armed
campaign against the Ankara government from 1984 to
1999.
AFP
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