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Kurdish rebel leader 'Ocalan' demands
retrial in Turkey
31.1.2006
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ISTANBUL, Jan 31,
2006 (AFP) - 16h24 - Jailed Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Ocalan has formally asked to be retried in
Turkey after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
ruled last year that his trial was unfair, one of
his lawyers said Tuesday.
Ocalan, 57, who launched a bloody Kurdish rebellion
in southeast Turkey in 1984, was condemned to death
in 1999 for treason, but his sentence was commuted
to life imprisonment in 2002 after Turkey abolished
capital punishment as part of efforts to align with
European Union democracy norms.
Ocalan's demand poses a legal challenge to the
government because current laws do not allow for his
retrial, but Ankara is under pressure to comply with
the rulings of the ECHR, lawyer Ibrahim Bilmez said.
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Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan-
Kurdistan-Turkey. |
"They will have to amend
the laws," he told AFP.
Recommending a retrial, the ECHR ruled in May that
the Turkish court that convicted Ocalan was not
impartial because it included a military judge
during part of the trial and because Ocalan and his
lawyers were denied the required time and facilities
to prepare their defense.
Ankara has said it will respect the ruling, but the
authorities have so far failed to clarify how they
will proceed.
Officials have said a possible retrial will seek to
correct procedural flaws but that it would not
result in a lighter verdict for Ocalan, whose
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is blacklisted as a
terror group by Ankara, the EU and the United
States.
A possible retrial could unleash fierce public anger
in Turkey, where the rebel leader is still a figure
of hate for many.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some
37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms for
self-rule in the predominantly Kurdish southeast in
1984.
Ocalan told his lawyers he had sent an application
for a retrial to an Ankara court when they last met
him on January 18 at the prison island of Imrali,
northwestern Turkey, where the PKK leader is the
sole inmate, Bilmez said.
AFP
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