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Turkey needs no lessons from Europe on Ocalan trial: PM Ecevit

ANKARA, Feb 16 (AFP) - Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit on Tuesday said Turkey needed no lessons from Europe on how to try Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan after the Europeans failed to try him themselves.

   "Of course everything will be completely transparent," Ecevit said in answer to a question on whether foreign observers would be
allowed at the trial. "But no European country has the right to lecture us on this subject," he added in remarks reported by the Anatolia news agency. "And if you ask why, it is because they did not put him on trial  even though their own prosecutors demanded it," Ecevit said. "Those who suspend justice for fear of violence in the streets have no right to warn or criticise us or to look at us askance," the prime minister said. "It is an irrefutable reality that the Turkish judiciary is independent," he added.

   European leaders earlier called for any trial of Ocalan to be fair and urged the Turkish authorities not to execute him. The Council of Europe in Strasbourg issued a statement calling for Ocalan to be tried in "total conformity with the European convention on human rights." Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schily was among those who called for Ocalan to be ensured the guarantees of the rule of law and for his life to be spared regardless of any trial verdict. Germany last year declined to request Ocalan's extradition from Italy, where he was held at the time, citing internal security concerns.

   Ecevit said the decision where to hold and when to try the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) would be made in the  coming days. Meanwhile, a security task force headed by Deputy Prime Minister Husamettin Ozkan would meet every morning to determine the necessary security measures at home and abroad, Ecevit said.

   The task force, including top police, gendarmerie, army, secret  service and interior ministry officials, assembled for a first meeting late Tuesday, Anatolia reported. Ocalan was intercepted by Turkish agents in Kenya on Monday and brought to Turkey early Tuesday, where he was wanted on terrorism charges in connection wuth the PKK's armed rebellion in sutheastern Anatolia.

 

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