The European Court of Human Rights today ruled Turkey's 1999 trial of Kurdish rebel chief Mr Abdullah Ocalan unfair, dealing Ankara a new blow as it battles crises over Iraq and its bid to join the EU.
The court criticised the trial because a military judge was present for some of the hearings and because Mr Ocalan, who was condemned to death but whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in October last year, was only given restricted access to his lawyers.
The ruling by the court, comprising seven judges, means Turkey should in theory be obliged to try Mr Ocalan again, but it is not binding.
The ruling is open to appeal by a bigger chamber comprising 17 judges at the European Court of Human Rights.
"The Court held by six votes to one...that the applicant was not tried by an independent and impartial tribunal," the court said of Mr Ocalan, blamed by Turkey for 30,000 deaths in a 16-year campaign by his Kurdistan Workers Party for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey.
"The applicant did not have a fair trial," the court added. It said Turkey had violated articles in the European Convention on Human Rights on the provision of adequate time and facilities for defence preparation and the right to legal assistance", it said.