Posted on 11/12/2004 10:10:50 AM PST by Mike Fieschko
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch authorities have raided a suspected training camp of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrilla group in the southern Netherlands and arrested 29 people, prosecutors said on Friday."This was a result of a year-long investigation," a prosecution spokesman said, adding that 29 people had been arrested in the raid at a farmyard campsite near the southern village of Liempde. "We suspect this was a training camp."
Other raids were taking place elsewhere in connection with the investigation, Dutch news agency ANP reported. The prosecution spokesman declined to comment on this report.
The spokesman said there was no connection between the raid and others in the country in recent days linked with investigations into suspected Islamic militants following the murder last week of outspoken Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
The Netherlands is home to about 350,000 Turks.
Earlier this week, a Dutch court blocked the extradition to Turkey of Nuriye Kesbir, who Ankara accuses of being part of the top leadership of the PKK and of organizing and taking part in attacks in southeast Turkey in 1993-95.
Kesbir was arrested after arriving in the Netherlands in September 2001. She was denied political asylum and has been fighting extradition proceedings ever since.
Turkey accuses Kesbir of training female PKK fighters and of planning and making armed attacks that resulted in 144 deaths. She has denied the charges but confirmed holding a leadership position in the PKK.
The PKK has been fighting for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey for 20 years, a conflict that has killed more than 30,000 people, mostly ethnic Kurds. Violence dropped off sharply with the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999 and most PKK guerrillas withdrew to northern Iraq.
Look for other EU nations to enact a Patriot Act soon!
They won't call it that, of course, but it will be fashioned after the manner of the one we have thanks to "those religious zealots" BUSH/Ashcroft.
The PKK and muslim extremists would be working at different goals though.
Man, so much for being a benevolent country!
Really bad guys.
If the Dutch don't just DEPORT THEM ALL, they're doomed.
(Well... deport or SHOOT!)
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