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Turkey: Former Kurdish MPs convicted again
over PKK links
10.3.2007
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March 10, 2007
ANKARA, -- Four former Kurdish lawmakers who
spent a decade behind bars in Turkey for alleged
links with armed rebels were Friday sentenced to
seven-and-a-half years in prison in a retrial, but
will not have to go to jail, a defence lawyer said.
The verdict by the Ankara was the third and latest
conviction in a 13-year legal saga against the
defendants, among them award-winning human rights
activist Leyla Zana, on charges of collaborating in
a bloody Kurdish insurgency in the country's
southeast.
"The court stood by its original 1994 guilty
verdict, but sentenced the former lawmakers to
seven-and-half years under the new penal code" which
came into effect in 2005, Zana's lawyer Yusuf Alatas
said in televised remarks.
Since the defendants -- Zana, Hatip Dicle, Selim
Sadak and Orhan Dogan -- have already spend 10 years
in jail, they will not have to go back behind bars,
Alatas said.
Friday's verdict also lifted a political ban imposed
on Zana and her colleagues, thus paving the way for
their return to active politics, the lawyer
explained.
"They are not deprived of their public rights, there
are no restrictions on them," Alatas said, but added
that the former lawmakers would have to get
permission from electoral authorities if they want
to run in legislative elections scheduled for
November.
Last week, the four former lawmakers were elected to
a 60-member assembly of the country's main Kurdish
party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), in a move
largely seen as a first step to playing a more
prominent role in politics. |
Turkey's outspoken Kurdish rights advocate Leyla
Zana, Former Kurdish MP in Turkey
Leyla Zana on trial in Turkey (1994). AFP |
Alatas said he would appeal the verdict in both
domestic and international courts, a reference to
the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights,
charging that the latest trial of the former
lawmakers was flawed.
"The retrial did not aim to find the truth. It was
just a formality," the lawyer said.
"The court referred to the defendants as 'convicts'
throughout the trial and delivered the same verdict
against them even though all evidence from the
original trial was destroyed," he said.
Zana and her colleagues were first sentenced to 15
years in jail in 1994 for membership of the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has been
fighting a 22-year bloody campaign for Kurdish
self-rule in the country's southeast.
The charges were brought two years after Zana, the
first Kurdish woman to be elected to Turkey's
parliament, caused an uproar by first taking the
oath in Turkish and then repeating in Kurdish to the
protest of other legislators.
At the ceremony, she also wore a headband in yellow,
green, and red, the colors of the PKK.
The four were adopted as prisoners of conscience by
the European Union and the European Parliament
awarded Zana its prestigious Sakharov human rights
prize in 1995.
In March 2003, Zana and her co-defendants were
allowed a retrial after their original conviction
was condemned as unfair by the European Court of
Human Rights in 2001.
The retrial upheld the original sentences amid
accusations by rights activists and defence lawyers
that the proceedings were again flawed.
However, the appeals court overturned their
convictions and ordered a new trial in July 2004 a
month after the four activists were released from
jail.
The third and latest trial had begun in October
2004.
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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