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Suspected Kurdish bomber risks life in
jail over resort blast
20.6.2006
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ANKARA, June 20,
2006 (AFP) , -- A Turkish prosecutor is
seeking a life sentence for an alleged separatist
Kurdish militant for a bombing in a popular seaside
resort last year that killed five people, two of
them foreigners, the Anatolia news agency reported
Tuesday.
The charge sheet, filed at a court in the Aegean
resort of Kusadasi, calls for the suspect to be
sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of
parole, on five counts of premeditated murder and
separatism, the agency reported.
It also calls for a separate prison sentence of 42
years for the injuries that the blast inflicted on
14 people.
A powerful telephone-triggered bomb hidden in a
small bag exploded on July 16, 2005, in a minibus
shuttling between downtown Kusadasi and a nearby
beach popular with foreign tourists.
An Irish teenager and a British woman were among the
victims. Five other Britons were hurt.
It was not immediately known when the trial would
start.
The blast was claimed by a shadowy group, the
Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, which officials say is a
front for attacks on civilians of the separatist
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a
terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and
the United States.
It was the deadliest attack claimed so far by TAK,
which often threatens to target Turkey's booming
tourism industry, a vital source of foreign revenue.
The suspect planted the remote-control bomb under a
seat in the minibus, then got off and made a call
from from a telephone booth to detonate the device,
according to the indictement.
He managed to escape after the blast and reportedly
sneaked into neighboring northern Iraq, where
thousands of PKK militants have found refuge over
the past several years.
The suspect was detained earlier this year in the
southeastern province of Elazig after returning to
Turkey.
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.
AFP
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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