* Ersanli among 200 accused of rebel links
* Ruling follows court reform
ISTANBUL, July 13 (Reuters) – A Turkish court ordered the
release on Friday of a well-known academic and 15 other people
who had been detained while on trial over accusations of links
to Kurdish militants, state media reported.
The order appeared to be one of the first outcomes of legal
reforms tightening up conditions for courts to hold people in
jail before verdicts.
The changes were pushed through this month amid complaints
by campaigners, and the country’s own prime minister, over the
power of the country’s prosecutors.
Busra Ersanli, a professor from Istanbul’s Marmara
University, is one of more than 200 defendants charged in the
case which has drawn international criticism over Ankara’s
record on freedom of speech.
They are accused of ties to the Union of Kurdistan
Communities, which the indictment says is the urban wing of the
militant separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Ersanli
rejects the charges.
State broadcaster TRT Haber said the court decided to
release her and 15 others on Friday, though all remained on
trial.
The PKK has waged an armed campaign against the state for
autonomy in the mainly Kurdish southeast that has claimed more
than 40,000 lives since 1984. It is labelled a terrorist group
by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
The legal reforms were pushed rapidly through parliament
before the summer recess.
Rights campaigners have repeatedly criticised the use of
pre-trial detention saying some defendants had been jailed for
years without a verdict in sight.
Thee reforms also abolished the Special Authority Courts
which handle terrorism and conspiracy related trials.
Among the most high-profile defendants seeking release are
former military chief General Ilker Basbug and two opposition
MPs, jailed over the alleged Ergenekon coup plot. A court ruling
on their continued detention may not come until the end of July.
The special courts, one of which is trying 100s of military
officers in the “Sledgehammer” case, have helped rein in the
once all-powerful army, which is firmly under civilian control
after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s 10 years in power.
The court handling the “Sledgehammer” case, a plot which
allegedly included plans to bomb mosques in Istanbul and trigger
conflict with Greece to pave the way for an army takeover,
rejected defendants’ release requests on Friday, media said.
Critics of the courts argue that they have been used to
stifle dissent, with academics, journalists and other army
officers among the hundreds being tried in the five-year-old
case against the secularist Ergenekon network.
Erdogan himself has criticised the handling of conspiracy
trials, accusing special prosecutors of acting as if they were
“a different power within the state”. {ID:nL5E8HCJKQ]
After this month’s reform, any future cases concerning coups
and terrorism-related crimes will be heard by regional high
criminal courts, not special courts.
(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
