Kurd’s Death Sentence Commuted to Life Term
Turkey formally commuted Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan’s death sentence to life in prison, two months after parliament abolished capital punishment in the nation’s bid to join the European Union.
A court in Ankara, the capital, ruled that Ocalan, head of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, was covered by the August reforms, the semiofficial Anatolian news agency reported. Ocalan was sentenced to death for treason in 1999 for leading the PKK’s 15-year war for autonomy in mostly Kurdish southeastern Turkey.
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