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Turkish police walk free despite
conviction of killing jail Kurds
28.2.2006
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ANKARA, Feb 28, -
Sixty-two Turkish policemen and paramilitary police
were convicted yesterday of beating 10 Kurdish
inmates to death a decade ago but walked free under
an amnesty.
Sezgin Tanrikulu, a lawyer for the victims - who
were accused of belonging to the autonomy-seeking
outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, -
immediately criticised the verdict as unjust. Turkey
is also under pressure from the European Union to
punish perpetrators of torture.
The court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir
(Kurdistan-Turkey) initially sentenced the
defendants to 18 years in prison for using excessive
force to quash a prison uprising, during which 10
Kurdish inmates were killed in September 1996. But
the court immediately commuted the prison term to
six years, saying the defendants were acting under
“heavy provocation,” and then reduced their sentence
to five years in prison, citing “good behaviour”
throughout the trial.
Eventually, the accused walked free as their
five-year term was automatically suspended under a
1999 amnesty until they re-offend. The court also
ruled that the defendants should be dismissed from
office for three years; however that punishment was
also eliminated under the same amnesty.
“Those who committed crimes against humanity have
evaded prison under the amnesty without serving one
day in prison,” the Anatolia news agency quoted
Tanrikulu as saying.
A parliamentary committee report had concluded that
there was evidence to show that some of the
prisoners had been severely beaten.
Reuters
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