A Turkish court condemned the Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan to death yesterday for leading separatist forces in a bitter conflict that has cost 29,000 lives in almost 15 years.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels threatened a fresh wave of violence after the ruling, delivered in a specially built courtroom on an isolated prison island.
Ocalan (50) stood with his hands folded behind his back in a bullet-proof glass box in court. He did not react when Judge Turgut Okyay told him he must hang for treason and mass murder.
"[He has] murdered thousands of innocent people without regard to babies, children, women or the elderly," said Judge Okyay, wearing a traditional black robe with high, scarlet collar.
Courtroom spectators then sang the Turkish national anthem. Ocalan was arrested by Turkish special forces in February in Kenya after months on the run through Europe and Africa. Until then, he had directed the PKK's fight for Kurdish self-rule from Damascus and was believed never to have visited the conflict zone in the mountains of south-eastern Turkey and northern Iraq.
The guerrillas have fought on since his capture and warned they would step up their campaign. "This means attacks on economic targets. The war will spread inside Turkey," a PKK spokeswoman said from London.
European cities beefed up security to avoid a repeat of the angry protests by members of the Kurdish diaspora that followed Ocalan's arrest.
Kurds gathered yesterday for protests in Moscow, Paris, The Hague, and Strasbourg, home of the 41-nation Council of Europe. The sentencing was a clear rebuttal of a courtroom offer by Ocalan to end the conflict in exchange for his life. The rebel chief denied betraying Turkey, a fiercely nationalistic country that refuses to give its millions of Kurds a separate identity.
"I do not accept the charge of treason," he said in brief remarks before sentencing. "I believe I've struggled for the unity of the land and a free life. . . I extend greetings to all," he said in a brief address to the court before the verdict. He was dressed in a brown double-breasted jacket with open neck shirt and listened to the judge impassively, his eyes darting from side to side occasionally. Although Turkish courts sometimes sentence convicts to death, no execution has been carried out since 1984.
The public mood appears at present to be strongly in favour of carrying out the execution, probably on Imrali Island, where he has been held since his capture.
But Ocalan's case must pass first to the appeals court and then to parliament for ratification. The nationalist parliament elected in April, partly as a result of elation over the capture of Ocalan, seems certain to pass the law necessary for Turkey's first execution since 1984.
Ocalan's chief hope of salvation lies with the European Court of Human Rights - a body not know for its swift action. An appeal to Strasbourg, even if given priority, could take anywhere from six to 18 months.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Turkey would not heed the advice of foreigners in the Ocalan case.
"We must await completion of the [legal] process. Beyond that, we neither have authority to interfere with the judicial rulings, nor will we accept such advice or interference from other countries," a spokesman, Mr Sermet Atacanli, said.