Turks Ignore Protests From West, Jail Kurdish Leaders

A Turkish court sentenced eight elected ethnic Kurdish leaders to between 3 1/2 and 15 years in prison Thursday, ignoring concerns expressed in the United States and the West that they were being jailed merely for expressing their views on Kurdish rights.

The military-dominated state security court in the capital, Ankara, accepted secret wiretaps and speeches to find six of the defendants guilty of working for the rebel guerrillas of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. Two others were sentenced to 3 1/2 years in jail for making separatist statements. They were the only two to be released pending an appeal.

The military-dominated state security court in the capital, Ankara, accepted secret wiretaps and speeches to find five former parliamentary deputies--Leyla Zana, Ahmet Turk, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak--guilty of working for the rebel guerrillas of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

The five all received the maximum sentence of 15 years.

In addition, Sedat Yurttas received a sentence of seven years and five months for helping the rebels. Sirri Sakik and independent deputy Mahmut Alinak were sentenced to 3 1/2 years each in jail for making separatist statements. They were the only two to be released pending an appeal.

“What is being punished is Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood. . . . How can people call this democracy if this happens when we just say something?” asked Alinak in front of the steel gates of the Ankara jail, where the eight have been imprisoned for up to nine months.

Alinak , an independent deputy, retained his parliamentary seat. The other seven were all members of the pro-Kurdish Democracy Party, banned in June for alleged activities against the territorial integrity of Turkey. The ban automatically threw them out of Parliament.

“These heavy sentences are shocking, incomprehensible. These sentences will not help Turkey’s image abroad or its integration with Europe,” one Western ambassador in Ankara said.

Diplomats said the trial will probably not divert European Union governments from concluding key negotiations this month on a 1996 customs union with Turkey. But the European Parliament has already suspended ties relations with its Turkey ish counterpart over the issue and may try to block any new legislation.

The U.S. government is deeply concerned” to learn of the court’s verdict, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelly said.

The Turkish government insists that it has the right to prosecute anybody linked to Kurdish rebels, who have used terrorist methods in a 10-year-old war aimed at self-determination for Turkey’s 12 million Kurds. It has recently rejected renewed calls for peace by the Syria-based rebel leader.

More than 13,500 people have died in the fighting.