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Turkey: Toxicology test results on jailed
Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan were negative
6.3.2007
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Turkey
says tests refute rebel poison claims
March 6, 2007
ANKARA, -- The Turkish government on Monday
said toxicology test results on jailed Kurdish rebel
leader Abdullah Ocalan were negative and that they
proved his lawyers'
claims he had been
poisoned were "pure lies."
"It is a lie, Turkey has never stooped so low," said
justice minister Cemic Cicek.
He said a group of expert Turkish doctors led by a
toxicologist had examined the prisoner, considered
public enemy number one in Turkey.
"The results will be made public at the weekend but
the allegations made by his lawyers are made up of
pure lies," said Cicek, who has previously suggested
the claims are intended to provoke international
interest in Ocalan. |
Jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. The only
prisoner on the Imrali Island in the Turkish Sea of
Marmara. photo from ROJ TV |
The rebel leader's
defence team on Thursday published the results of
tests on his hair, which they said showed probable
poisoning by toxic metals.
Ocalan is the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK), which is listed as a terrorist group by
Ankara, the EU and the United States but viewed as
freedom fighters by many among Turkey's big Kurdish
minority.
He has been serving a life sentence for treason and
separatism on the prison island of Imrali, where he
is the only inmate, since 1999.
Officials from Europe's top human rights
organisation, the Council of Europe, have visited
Ocalan and said his jail conditions are satisfactory
but urged Ankara to ease his isolation.
More than 30,000 Turkish soldiers and PKK guerrillas
have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up
arms for self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
AFP
** The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to some 20 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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