Death Sentence Sought for Kurd Rebel Chief’s Brother

A prosecutor Friday charged the brother of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan with treason and demanded that he be sentenced to death.

Guerrilla commander Osman Ocalan, whose whereabouts remain unknown, is likely to be tried in absentia on charges of separatism and causing the deaths of thousands of people and soldiers in 15 years of fighting between Turkish troops and his brother’s Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

Abdullah Ocalan, who was captured in Kenya last year, has been condemned to death for leading the PKK in its battle for Kurdish autonomy in southeastern Turkey.

Since then, Osman Ocalan has taken a more vocal position within the group and could succeed his brother.

The indictment by the Diyarbakir prosecutor’s office said Osman Ocalan was once in charge of PKK activities in Iran and Libya. More recently, Osman Ocalan “organized terrorist activities in military training camps in northern Iraq,” the indictment said.

Osman Ocalan, who frequently takes part in telephone interviews on a Europe-based Kurdish television station that is banned in Turkey, refuses to disclose his whereabouts. Turkish reports have suggested that he is in hiding in Iran or in northern Iraq.

Since Abdullah Ocalan’s arrest, the group has announced an end to its armed struggle and said it wants to gain Kurdish rights through political means. Turkey has ignored the PKK’s cease-fire and has vowed to continue its fight until all rebels surrender or are killed.

Turkey does not recognize the Kurds as a minority and bans teaching and broadcasts in the Kurdish language.

An estimated 37,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed in clashes in the southeast since the rebels took up arms in 1984.