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STRASBOURG, May 12 (AFP) - 10h47 - The European
Court of Human Rights on Thursday upheld a ruling in
favour of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan,
saying that he had been unfairly tried by a Turkish
court that sentenced him to death in 1999.
The court, whose ruling is not binding, recommended
that Ankara retry Ocalan.
Ocalan's sentence was commuted to a life sentence,
which he is currently serving in the prison island
of Imrali.
The decision of the court's high chamber upheld a
2003 ruling of the court and condemned Turkey for
violating three articles of the European Convention
on Human Rights.
In an 11-to-6 ruling, the European judges considered
that state security court judging Ocalan was neither
independent nor impartial because of the presence of
a military judge on the panel.
The Strasbourg-based court considered that "where an
individual, as in the applicant's case, had been
convicted by a court which did not meet the
Convention requirements of independence and
impartiality, a retrial or a reopening of the case,
if requested, represented in principle an
appropriate way of redressing the violation."
An official from Turkey's governing party on
Thursday expressed discontent at the ruling.
"It was not a ruling we desired," Sadullah Ergin, a
parliamentary group chairman for the Justice and
Development Party (AKP), told the NTV news channel.
The jugdes ruled unanimously that Ocalan's right to
legal assistance was violated, along with his right
to "adequate time and facilities for the preparation
of defence," the court's registrar said in a
statement.
The ruling also condemned Turkey for not bringing
the Kurdish leader promptly before a judge following
his arrest in February 1999.
"The Grand Chamber found that the overall effect of
those difficulties taken as a whole had so
restricted the rights of the defence that the
principle of a fair trial ... had been contravened,"
the court said.
But the judges ruled that Ocalan's arrest in Kenya
and transfer to Turkey did not amount to
ill-treatment.
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 southeastern Turkey.
The court also ruled against Ocalan's lawyers who
had argued that his solitary confinement amounted to
inhuman and degrading treatment.
Ocalan's sentence was commuted on October 3, 2002,
after Turkey scrapped the death penalty in a bid to
ease its entry into the European Union.
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 EU on
October 3.
AFP
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