Turkey to Retry Kurdish Rebel

In a widely anticipated ruling, Europe’s top human rights court Thursday urged Turkey to grant a retrial to Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, saying his 1999 trial was not fair.

The decision by the European Court for Human Rights is expected to stoke anger in Turkey and complicate Ankara’s efforts to lead this predominantly Muslim country into the European Union, Western diplomats and Turkish officials said.

Leaders in Ankara, the capital, said they would respect the court’s decision and retry a man most Turks revile. But officials also sought to reassure Turks that Ocalan would be found guilty of treason charges at a retrial and remain in jail.

“We must be as cold-blooded as possible.... This is not the end of the world,” Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said. “Our people must not be concerned, they must trust the state and the judiciary.”

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visiting Hungary, said, “Whether this case is reopened or not, the matter [of Ocalan’s guilt] is a closed one for the nation’s conscience.”

Even as Turkish leaders sought to play down the Strasbourg, France-based court’s opinion, opposition leaders predicted major consequences. “This decision will excite separatist appetites, invite armed attacks,” said Devlet Bahceli, leader of the ultranationalist Nationalist Action Party.

“Our honor has been assailed, Turkey will be in an uproar,” he said.

Turkey’s hawkish military joined the criticism with Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, commander of land forces, calling the ruling “political” and “crooked.” His statement echoed widespread sentiment that the EU was putting up fresh hurdles to Turkey’s entry to the common market.

Recent polls show that support for EU membership has begun to cool, with 63% of Turks in favor compared with 75% about a year ago.

“There is still a lot of suspicion about European motives, fears that Europe is seeking to dismember Turkey” by supporting Kurdish rights, said Dogu Ergil, a political scientist at Ankara University.

Ocalan, 56, led a 15-year insurgency to establish an independent Kurdish state in the southeast until 1999, when he was captured by Turkish special forces in Nairobi, Kenya.

His 5,000-member rebel army called off its fight and retreated to mountain bases in northern Iraq after Ocalan renounced armed violence and withdrew demands for Kurdish statehood, saying Turkey’s 14 million Kurds would settle for cultural autonomy.

Clashes between Turkish and rebel forces have resumed since Ocalan’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has been renamed KADEK, ended its unilateral cease-fire last year over what it said was the government’s refusal to negotiate “a just and lasting peace.”

Much of the fighting has been concentrated in the rugged mountains separating Turkey from Iraq, where the military last month launched its largest-scale operation against the rebels in recent years.

Ocalan, who was sentenced to death for treason in June 1999, is the sole inmate of Imrali, an island prison off the coast of Istanbul. During his trial, he pleaded for his life so he might “serve the Turkish state” and “help promote peace and brotherhood between Turks and Kurds.”

He apologized to the families of rebel victims and described his insurrection as “a mistake masterminded by Western powers led by Britain.” He also accused his forces of disobeying his orders by attacking civilians.

His death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2002 after Turkey scrapped the death penalty to comply with EU-inspired reforms.

Ocalan, whose surname means “avenger” in Turkish, remains a hero to thousands of Kurds.

“Like him or not, his influence over the Kurds cannot be contested, the Ocalan reality cannot be denied,” Firat Anli, a mayor in the largest Kurdish province, Diyarbakir, said in an interview.

In its verdict, the court said Turkey had violated international treaties by denying Ocalan access to a lawyer immediately after his detention. The panel of judges also cited Ocalan’s trial by a special state security court set up to prosecute perpetrators of “terror crimes” against the state.

“The applicant was not tried by an independent and impartial tribunal,” the judges said. Turkey has since scrapped such courts.

The verdict still must be approved by the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights watchdog, of which Turkey is a member.

“This is a long process and we still have a great deal of time,” Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

Vittorio Emanuele Agnoletto, a member of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said the timing of the trial would be “fundamentally important.”

“A speedy decision to hold a new trial will have a very significant effect on Turkey’s negotiations with the EU,” he told Associated Press. The talks are scheduled to begin Oct. 3.

Hatice Korkut, one of Ocalan’s lawyers, said that unless he petitioned the Turkish authorities for a retrial, “the process cannot move forward.”

“His spirits are high and he will make a decision after reading the full text of the verdict,” she said in a telephone interview.