Leader of Kurdish organization arrested trying to enter Netherlands

Amsterdam - Dutch police arrested an alleged top member of the Kurdish resistance movement PKK as he tried to enter the Netherlands, his lawyer told local media Friday. Hasan Adir, who allegedly heads PKK operations in Germany, was arrested while driving from Germany to Venlo, a town in the south- east of the country near the Dutch-German border.

Turkey claims Adir, who resides in Germany, is a leading figure in the PKK or Kurdistan Workers Party, a separatist movement defined as terrorist under Turkish law.

The arrest took already place on January 19, his lawyer Bart Nooitgedacht said. Turkey has meanwhile asked for Adir's extradition.

The Dutch Justice Ministry confirmed Adir's arrest and said an extradition hearing is due to take place in the court in the southern town of Roermond on March 18.

Nooitgedacht says his client will protest extradition because he fears he would be tortured or killed in Turkey. He claims Turkish officials already tortured him before and that he fled to Germany after Turkish officials killed several of his relatives.

Nooitgedacht also says Germany has effectively acknowledged his client's fears are legitimate and that this is why his current country of residence also refused to extradite him.

"A German court has already established my client runs the risk of being tortured. Turkey considers him to be a state risk and as someone who can provide information about a terrorist organization," Nooitgedacht said.

The lawyer added Adir was "never involved in illegal business. He is a political activist and protests the fact the Dutch are treating him like a terrorist."

Turkey claims Adir is an important and leading figure in the PKK. In 2004, a German court sentenced him to two years and eight months imprisonment for involvement in PKK-related violent activities.

The Kurdish Workers Party PKK is listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States.

The PKK, formed in the late 1970s with the aim of creating an independent Kurdistan, has been engaged in an armed struggle against Turkey that has claimed thousands of lives.

Turkey, which fought a long and bloody war against Kurdish separatists in the 1990s, has been urging EU nations to crack down harder on offshoots of the PKK, which draws a significant part of its funding from Kurdish migrants working in rich nations.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/311424,leader-of-kurdish-organization-arrested-trying-to-enter-netherlands.html.