Prosecutors demand death for Ocalan, trial adjourned 

• Court decides to delay the trial for 15 days, the maximum period allowed by law, to give the separatist chieftain's lawyers time to prepare for his final defense 

NURETTIN OZKOSE 

Prosecutors reiterated in their closing arguments in the trial of Turkey's number-one public enemy, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), that the separatist chieftain should be sentenced to death. 

The presentation of the prosecutors final arguments indicated that the trial is quickly approaching its end and could conclude before the end of the month, judicial observers said. After an unexpectedly short two-hour session on Tuesday, the court ruled for the adjournment of the case to June 23 to give Ocalan's lawyers time to prepare for his final defense. 

The lawyers had requested a one-month adjournment but were allowed only 15 days, the maximum period allowed by the law governing trial procedures at the State Security Courts (DGMs). 

Ocalan's trial has been taking place at a DGM court established inside a theater on the prison island of Imrali, where Ocalan is the only inmate. 

Like the prosecutors, Ocalan's lawyers are expected to focus their final arguments in defense of the separatist leader on the developments occurring since the start of the trial, sources told the Turkish Daily News. 

The prosecutors insisted that Ocalan, who is facing charges of treason against the state as the person responsible for the death of over 30,000 victims of PKK violence in the country, should be sentenced to death as his crimes were substantiated. 

Ignoring a threat by Ocalan and a warning by the PKK presidential council, who have threatened to intensify their separatist insurgency if their leader is sent to the gallows, prosecutors said the number-one public enemy of the country should hang for leading a 15-year terrorist campaign that has led to over 30,000 deaths. 

DGM Chief Prosecutor Cevdet Volkan said Ocalan had himself admitted responsibility "for all actions of the terrorist organization" and "causing more deaths than he is accused of." 

"With the aim of establishing an independent state on Turkish territory, (Ocalan) formed and led the armed gang ... which carried out thousands of terrorists attacks, ruthlessly killed tens of thousands of people and left as many disabled," Volkan said. 

The outlawed PKK issued a warning late Monday that the execution of their leader would be "suicide for the Turkish state." 

"All forms of struggle to defend the national honor, pride and cause of the Kurdish people would then be legitimate," the gang said. 

Throughout his trial last week, Ocalan said similarly that if he is spared execution he would work for peace between his PKK and Turkey, but he threatened that if he is hanged, the number of victims could go much higher than 30,000 and "may even exceed 100,000." 

The prosecutor Tuesday discarded Ocalan's call for peace as "insincere," very much like the so-called unilateral cease-fire offers of the 1993-1998 period that all aimed to buy some time for a reorganization of the deathly PKK gang. 

Reading the 13-page closing arguments to Ocalan as he stood in the bulletproof, bombproof cage where he has remained throughout his trial, Volkan said Ocalan was "insincere" in his calling for peace and a "democratic settlement." He said the separatist leader's testimony that the PKK has abandoned separatism, wanted an end to the bloodshed and a democratic settlement, and that if his life was spared, he would work for the establishment of peace were all aimed at finding a way out from the deadlock he and the gang have found themselves in. 

The prosecutor pointed out that although Ocalan told the court that from 1993 on he had made repeated attempts to end the bloodshed, over 80 percent of the victims of PKK violence lost their lives after 1993. 

Volkan said the crimes the PKK was responsible for and for which Ocalan claimed overall responsibility were all within the bounds of the description of terrorism against which the Organization for European Security and Cooperation, the Paris Charter, the 1992 Helsinki Declaration and the 1993 Vienna Human Rights World Conference Declaration have all appealed for international cooperation. 

Ocalan is widely expected to be convicted and sentenced to death. If the punishment is endorsed by Parliament, he would be the first person to be hanged in Turkey since the end of the military administration in Dec. 1983. 

The PKK has staged sporadic attacks since the opening of the trial last week. Turkish troops killed seven terrorists in clashes in the southeastern province of Siirt, the Anatolia news agency reported Tuesday. It was not clear when the fighting took place.