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NEWS
Europe Once Again Displays Understanding for Terror
By Arnon Yaffeh, Paris
The European Court for Human Rights is forcing Turkey to
retry Abdullah Occalan, the head of Kurdish terror
organization PKK allegedly responsible for the murder of
thousands. Occalan is thought of in Turkey like Bin Laden is
thought of in the West—a terrorist who engineered
bloody terrorist activities from bases in Syria. A Turkish
court sentenced him to death but mitigated the sentence to
life imprisonment when the Europeans came to his defense.
According to Turkish sources his organization waged a
terrorist war in which 37,000 people were killed.
"The ruling of the European Court in Strasbourg should serve
as another warning against vesting authority in international
courts like the Hague," writes the Wall Street
Journal, saying such that courts misuse their authority
to issue political rulings. The Europeans stirred sympathy
for Occalan and his treacherous organization. Greece, Belgium
and France supported Kurdish terrorism. In France the wife of
former president Francois Mitterrand supported Kurdish
terrorism.
In 1988 Turkey threatened to start a war with Syria if it
refused to extradite Occalan and expel PKK members from their
bases in Syria and the Lebanon Valley. Massing heavy forces
on the Syrian border convinced Assad to deport Occalan, who
was discovered in Italy and smuggled out to Kenya by Italian
intelligence services. The Turks captured him in the Greek
embassy in Nairobi and brought him to trial. European
governments warned Turkey not to harm him and pleaded for his
life until the Turks were compelled to commute his sentence
to life in prison to avoid retribution by the Europeans.
The European Court rejected the trial the Turks held, arguing
the sentence was predetermined. Turkish authorities broadcast
the trial from the remote island where it was held.
International jurist David Rivkin said the European Court is
defending terrorists in a political trial rife with
superciliousness and hypocrisy.
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