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Turkey: Kurd rebel leader Ocalan not
poisoned- prosecutor
12.3.2007
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March 12, 2007
ISTANBUL, March 12, -- Toxicology tests on
jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan are
negative, proving false claims by his lawyers that
he was being poisoned, state prosecutors said
Monday.
"The report issued today by the Istanbul coroner's
office has determined that claims of (Ocalan) being
poisoned are totally groundless," said a statement
from the prosecutor's office in the northwestern
city of Bursa.
The Bursa prosecutor's office oversees the prison
island of Imrali in the Marmara Sea, where Ocalan
has been kept in solitary confinement since 1999.
The report was based on tests done by a team of
three experts on samples of Ocalan's blood, urine,
sputum, faeces and hair, the statement carried by
the Anatolia news agency said. |
Jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. The only
prisoner on the Imrali Island in the Turkish Sea of
Marmara. photo from ROJ TV |
Turkey ordered the exams after Ocalan's lawyers told
a press conference in Rome earlier this month that
their client was being poisoned in jail.
The lawyers said tests on hair samples from Ocalan,
58, indicated the presence of what they described as
toxic metals, including high levels of chromium and
strontium.
They said Ocalan was experiencing breathing and skin
problems, as well as pains severe enough to
interrupt his sleep.
Ocalan is the head of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
which has waged a bloody campaign since 1984 for
self-rule in southeast Turkey in a conflict that has
claimed more than 37,000 lives.
Considered by many as the country's public enemy
number one, he has been kept under tight security on
Imrali since he was convicted of treason in 1999.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by
Turkey, the European Union and the United States,
but many among Turkey's large Kurdish minority
consider its members freedom fighters.
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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