The ‘black sheep’ in anti-terror war

Fehriye Erdal
A Belgian court decision to acquit members of a Turkish group designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union has startled observers and led to bitter criticism that the controversial ruling would turn Belgium into a safe haven for terrorists around the world.





The Anvers Court of Appeals on Thursday acquitted seven members of the leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), including the group's leader, and sentenced three others to suspended sentences for unauthorized possession of firearms and false identity papers. All three, including a suspect wanted in Turkey in connection with a 1996 assassination of a prominent Turkish industrialist, were then released, considering the time they had already spent in jail.

Their arrests in Belgium followed the discovery of an arms cache on the Belgian coast in 1999. The judge ruled, however, that the group had no intention of committing terrorist acts in Belgium and added it was not up to the court to assess how the suspects felt about terrorism in general. While acquitting the DHKP/C members of terrorism charges, the court also declined to take into consideration their terrorist activities in other countries.

"If the court acts on the basis of the presumption that the DHKP/C's terrorist activities in Turkey, Germany or the Netherlands do not affect the trial in Belgium, it is certain that such an attitude is in violation of the basic principles of the international fight against terrorism, including the relevant UN Security Council decisions," read a statement from the Turkish Foreign Ministry yesterday.

It said the ruling will contradict EU laws and EU Council decisions designating the DHKP/C a terrorist group. "It is certain that such rulings will encourage terrorist groups," said the statement. It also implied that Turkey might take the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights, saying Ankara will look into ways to appeal.

The DHKP/C, responsible for many terrorist attacks in Turkey, has been on the EU's terror list since May 2002. EU Council officials, contacted by Today's Zaman, declined to comment on the ruling, saying they were still expecting further information on its content. An official, speaking on condition of anonymity, made clear that the decision on what measures to be taken toward a particular group designated as a terrorist organization by the EU was up to individual member states. But if a member state opposes the designation of a group as a terrorist organization, it is expected to bring forward its objections to the council, said the official, adding, however, that there has been no such request from Belgian authorities.

The decision was met with criticism in the Belgian media as well. Newspapers presented a hypothetical situation for Belgium in which al-Qaeda terrorists, after committing many acts of violence elsewhere in the world -- but none in Belgian territory -- come to the country and ask for asylum.

Thursday’s decision is the latest shocking development in the course of the lengthy trial process of the DHKP/C members. It came at the end of a retrial, after Belgium’s highest court had ordered a retrial in April of last year, saying that one of the judges handling the first trial in 2006 appeared not to have been impartial.

Fehriye Erdal, one of the three DHKP/C terrorists sentenced to suspended imprisonment in the case, is wanted in Turkey for involvement in the 1996 murder of industrialist Özdemir Sabancı. In the 2006 ruling, she was sentenced to four years in prison, but, in a development that outraged Turkey, she escaped before her conviction despite being under surveillance by Belgian security forces and is still on the run. The DHKP/C was also considered a terrorist group in the 2006 decision.

“I am terrified,” said Köksal Toptan, speaker of the Turkish Parliament, of Thursday’s decision. “It is absolutely terrifying that a group designated as a terrorist organization all across the world is not seen as a terrorist organization.”

Toptan continued: “Terrorism needs to be combated across the globe. Otherwise the entire world will lose the fight against it. Such a decision coming from a court in Belgium, a central EU state, means encouragement of terrorism.”

According to Toptan, a mentality that lets people walk free of the court because they have not committed any crime in Belgium cannot be part of any global effort to counter terrorism. “No one would feel they have to help others in the fight against terrorism.”

The decision appears to be a blow to the Belgian government, which has been pressing for a tougher stance against terrorism. Interior Minister Patrick Dewael, who earlier lashed out at the DHKP/C as a terrorist group, was silent after Thursday’s ruling, saying he would respect the judiciary’s decisions.

Reports said Belgian intelligence and security organizations, eager to pursue a tougher fight against terrorist groups, were disappointed because they are concerned this would make Belgium look like a “backyard” of terrorist organizations.

‘Keep up hopes for assassination case’

However startling Thursday’s decision could be, it is not expected to affect a separate trial for Erdal over the assassination of Sabancı. In 2007, a court in Bruges ruled that Erdal could face trial in Belgium for crimes she committed in Turkey and the appeals court upheld the ruling.

Erdal, who spent one year in jail and was later kept under house arrest, may face trial for the Sabancı murder towards the end of this year, Fernand Schmitz, the Belgian lawyer for the Sabancı family, told the Anatolia news agency yesterday. “Erdal will not move about with impunity,” Schmitz said, asking for the Turks to remain hopeful about the case.


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DHKP/C trial timeline in Belgium
Sept. 26, 1999: Members of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), an outlawed leftist group in Turkey, attracted the attention of security forces after a group of neighbors next to their apartment in a village of Duinbergen, disturbed by heavy smoke, called the police and firefighters, who found the DHKP/C group had been burning what appeared to be illegal documents. An investigation of the apartment saw the seizure of several guns, fake identity cards and ammunition. Eleven members of the group, including Fehriye Erdal, suspected assassin of prominent Turkish businessman Özdemir Sabancı, were taken into custody for possession of unlicensed weapons and fake documents.

Jan. 23, 2006: The 11 members of the group appeared before a judge for the first time in a criminal court in Bruges. They were tried on charges of membership of a criminal organization.

Feb. 27, 2006: Erdal escaped, along with the group’s spokesman Musa Asoğlu, only a day before the court announced its verdict. A scandal was generated by Erdal’s flight as she remained on the run despite the 32 inspectors assigned by Belgian intelligence to find her. Calls were made for the resignation of the Belgian interior and justice ministers, but they refused to do so.

Feb. 28, 2006: The Bruges High Criminal Court released four of the 11 members of the group. Erdal, leader Dursun Karataş, Aşoğlu, Kaya Saz, Bahar Kimyongür, Zerrin Şarı and ŞÃ¼kriye Akar were sentenced to jail terms of between four and six years. Judge Freddy Troch termed the DHKP/C a “criminal organization.”

Sept. 11, 2006: Upon the group members’ appeal to a higher court, the Gent Court of Appeals restarted the group member’s trial process.

Nov. 7, 2006: The Gent Court of Appeals concluded that the DHKP/C was a criminal and terrorist organization, founded by leftist figures influenced by Marxist and Leninist opinions to destroy the Turkish Republic. The Gent court increased the sentences imposed on members of the group. Erdal, who stood trial in absentia, and Karataş were sentenced to five years in prison, Aşoğlu seven.

April 19, 2007: The Belgian Supreme Court of Appeals quashed the conviction by the Gent court, citing juridical flaws, and ruled that all 11 members of the group be retried.

Sept. 13, 2007: A trial in Anvers began, focusing on whether the DHKP/C should be termed a terrorist organization.

Feb. 7, 2008: The Anvers Court of Appeals rules that the DHKP/C, although deemed a terrorist organization by European Union countries, was not a terrorist formation. Thus seven members of the group were acquitted of membership in a terrorist organization and received only light sentences for minor offenses. Three members of the group, including Erdal -- earlier sentenced in absentia to five years in jail -- were given suspended sentences of two years’ imprisonment for possession of unlicensed weapons and fake documents. Karataş was found not guilty on all counts.


09.02.2008

Today’s Zaman İstanbul

The answer is : It is not entirely.
But, almost all the EU countries are having the same approach to terrorism and terrorists (except the ones related to the usa).
The basic idea is as long as they dont take arms against them, let them walk around..
And Turkey, in the past, was not very pure regarding human rights with all those turture cases and basic freedom of speech etc. Of course it is generically getting better.
But I think, it will take some times for some of the EU countries to be persuaded that Turkey has changed..