Kurd leaders face life sentence

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The trial began today in Diyarbakir of over 150 Kurds accused of disrupting the unity of the state and being members of the political wing of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the Ankara government describes as a "terrorist" organisation.

The official charge sheet accuses the 150 of "membership of the Democratic Confederation of Kurdistan/Turkish Assembly as the urban organisation of the PKK." Those convicted could face life sentences or imprisonment for up to 15 years.

The defendants include a dozen mayors, members of the progressive Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and leading human rights activists.

They were held after a police round-up in spring last year when more than 2,200 were arrested in different provinces.

Some 1,500 people are still in custody.

The raids were launched in the wake of local elections in which the social democratic and pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) made significant gains.

The BDP, which called on Ankara to release all the defendants pending trial, is the successor organisation to the DTP which was banned in December 2009 over its alleged PKK links.

Though it it has nothing to do with the PKK, the BDP espouses the same proposals for resolving the country's long-running war.

These include an amnesty for combattants and a negotiated settlement.

The PKK has been fighting for greater Kurdish autonomy in Turkey since the early 1980s in a conflict that has claimed almost 40,000 lives.

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Prosecutor had demanded 36.5 years of imprisonment for Baydemir in the indictment about KCK.

The 6th Heavy Criminal Court in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir began to hear the first trial of KCK --PKK's secret urban wing.

All 103 arrested suspects as well as 18 of 48 suspects without arrest (including Diyarbakir Metropolitan Mayor Osman Baydemir and Sur Mayor Abdullah Demirtas) were present at the court which is continuing in a special hall.

Prosecutor had demanded 36.5 years of imprisonment for Baydemir in the indictment about KCK (Kurdish Communities Union).

Strict security measures were taken in and around the court building. Lawyers, journalists, relatives of suspects as well as Chairman Selahattin Demirtas of Peace & Democracy Party (BDP) and several deputies of the party arrived in the court to watch the trial.

In an indictment about KCK, it was claimed that mayors from the outlawed Democratic Society Party (DTP) gave their first two salaries to the PKK and sent financial aid to the PKK every month.

The indictment also includes a shocking allegation about Deniz Baykal, former leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). It was claimed that Baykal asked for permission from KCK to come to Diyarbakir during the local elections in 2009. It was also claimed that a member of the KCK threatened Baykal not to come to the province.