The Real Test

Yikes. This will indeed be a tough issue for Turkey:

European court rules Ocalan trial unfair

The top European human rights court has ruled that the leader of Turkey’s Kurdish rebels did not receive a fair trial in 1999. The Grand Chamber of the European Human Rights Court ruled on Thursday that international treaties had been breached in the 1999 trial of Abdullah Ocalan.

The PKK is a very sensitive issue in Turkey and this is indeed a shit sandwich from which the Turks will have to take a bite. While Europe made clear their objections were related to procedure and not substance and while there is no legal obligation to retry him, Turkey will likely decide to do so as there is no question of his guilt anyway. The full text of the decision is available here as well as a history Ocalan’s capture here.

Tactfully, the European Court did not order a retrial giving the Turkish government the needed breathing room to explain this to their population. Afterwards, there will surely be an “independent” decision in the Turkish courts to retry him. As Al Jazeera notes, as most of the documentation and evidence is already there from the first trial, a second one would be considerably faster. Examples like this are chalked right up there with the major successes of soft power.