Turkey Frees 23 Suspected Militants Under New Law

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 VOA News Turkish authorities have released 23 suspected militants, including members of an extreme Islamist group, in accordance with a new law that restricts to 10 years the amount of time suspects can be jailed without being tried.

Courts in Istanbul and the mainly Kurdish southeast part of Turkey Tuesday ordered the release of 18 members of Turkish Hezbollah, a Sunni organization that takes its name from the Shi'ite group active in Lebanon but shares no formal links. Five alleged members of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, an armed Kurdish independence movement, were also released.

All have been freed pending an appeals court verdict.

The new law – which took effect January 1 – has

drawn criticism from lawyers who say it could be used to keep suspects in jail for as long as 10 years, instead of speeding up Turkey's notoriously slow justice system. But Turkey's practice of jailing suspects indefinitely without sentences has long irked human rights advocates, who say the recent amendment to the Turkish criminal code does not go far enough.

Turkish Hezbollah made headlines in 2000 when police found dozens of its victims in mass graves, some hogtied and buried alive.

Among the prisoners freed Tuesday is Haci Inan, the alleged leader of Turkish Hezbollah's armed wing. Another senior member of the group, Edip Gumus, was welcomed by dozens of jubilant supporters upon his release. Both were among those convicted in 2009 on charges of killing 188 people and attempting to set up an Islamic state in southeastern Turkey.

The released suspects will not be able to leave the country and must report regularly to police. Turkish media have reported that an estimated 50,000 inmates could petition authorities for a review of their cases under the new legislation, raising the prospect of many more releases to come.