Kurdish PKK leader appeals to ECHR against Greece

Over 20 years after his kidnapping by Turkish secret agents in Kenya and imprisonment in Turkey on terrorism charges, Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan has appealed against Greece to the European Court of Human Rights.

The application, which the court accepted, concerns his arrival in Greece in 1998, his application for asylum and his arrest in Kenya in February 1999.

The charge cites his treatment in Greece, which his lawyers said contravened the European Convention on Human Rights. In particular, Ocalan claims his application for asylum in Greece wasn’t examined, he was detained without legal basis while in Greece, he wasn’t given the opportunity to assert his rights before the Greek courts, and that he was handed over to the Turks while in the hands of Greek authorities in Kenya.

According to diplomatic sources, Athens will respond in accordance with the procedures laid down by the ECHR.

Ocalan is the founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which launched a separatist insurgency against the Turkish state in the 1984.