- November 28, 2001

Turkey Sentences 3 to Death for Terrorism

By REUTERS

ISTANBUL Nov. 27  - A Turkish court sentenced three leftist militants to death today - the first such judgment since Parliament passed a law lifting the death penalty for most crimes.

The sentences, by a state security court in the western city of Izmir, were levied against members of an urban guerrilla group, Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, for trying to subvert the constitutional order and shooting dead a Turkish soldier in Denizli Province in 1998. They were convicted of acts of terror.

Parliament amended the Constitution last month to restrict the death penalty to acts of terror and treason carried out in times of war, a move to bring its laws into line with Europe's.

Turkey, a candidate to join the European Union, has not carried out an execution since 1984, but scrapping capital punishment altogether has been high on the agenda since the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan was sentenced to death in 1999.