Dutch Deport Kurd

[DEBRA at OLN.comlink.apc.org]

## Original in: /HRNET/EUROPE&MIDEAST
## author     : trh at NETCOM.COM
## date       : 19.07.94

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[This article has been excerpted.]

DUTCH DEPORT KURDISH SEPARATIST

THE HAGUE, July 18 (Reuter) - The Netherlands said...Monday
it was deporting a senior member of the separatist Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) but would not extradite him to Turkey.

Ali Sapan, European spokesman for the PKK's political wing,
the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (ERNK), was
arrested last Thursday in the eastern Netherlands, the
justice ministry said.

"The investigating magistrate has decided there are no
grounds for keeping him so he will be expelled from the
Netherlands," a ministry spokeswoman said. "He has to leave
the country today but will not be sent back to Turkey."

[...]

Sapan is wanted in Turkey for crimes including anti-Turkish
activities and kidnapping foreigners.

Both the PKK and the ERNK are outlawed in Turkey, where more
than 12,200 people have been killed in the decade since the
PKK launched its violent campaign for a separate Kurdish
state.

They were both...banned in Germany last year after attacks
against Turkish targets in Europe.