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ANKARA, Oct 3: Turkey’s state security court on Thursday formally lifted the death sentence passed on Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan after his capture and trial in 1999, the state-run Anatolian news agency said.
Ocalan has lived in the shadow of the noose on Imrali prison island since he was whisked away from Kenya by Turkish special forces and tried here for treason.
Turkish authorities blamed him for 30,000 deaths in a 16-year separatist campaign in the southeast.
Anatolian said the Ankara State Security Court had commuted the sentence to life imprisonment in line with Turkey’s abolition of the death sentence in August to meet European Union (EU) human rights criteria.
The ruling, though a formality, has strong symbolic value in Turkey. It is likely to be greeted with derision by groups that have campaigned for the last three years for “Apo” to be hanged.
While he was on trial on Imrali, standing inside a glass box in the courtroom, groups demonstrated nearby demanding the man denounced in newspapers as a “baby killer” be hanged quickly.
The court move can be held up by pro-EU reformers as concrete evidence of improvement in human rights ahead of an EU review next week of progress made by candidate countries. The death penalty is a fraught issue in Turkey, a country that hanged its prime minister after a military coup in 1960.
OCALAN’S REBELS IN IRAQ: No one, however, has been hanged in Turkey since 1984 and Ocalan’s execution was delayed by an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Ocalan’s is one of about 20 death sentences which will be commuted to life imprisonment following the abolition of the death penalty.
Turkey launched a diplomatic campaign backed by threats of armed force in 1998 in an effort to make Damascus hand over Ocalan, who was living in Syria. Ocalan fled and was finally seized in Kenya after being lured from the Greek embassy where he had sought refuge.
Ocalan’s capture followed a string of Turkish military successes against his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). From jail he called on his rebels to stop fighting and seek a negotiated settlement with the Turkish state, but officials here saw this as a ruse to obtain by political means what had eluded them by the gun. PKK rebels are still active in small numbers in Turkey.—Reuters
