Kurdish rebel leader snatched in clandestine operation

Ocalan  ALSO: Irate Kurds protest across Europe over Ocalan's arrest Profile: Ocalan inspires loyalty, hate Key issues in Kurds' struggle form autonomy in Turkey Chronology of the Ocalan affair

Arrest sparks protests across Europe

February 16, 1999
Web posted at: 10:22 a.m. EST (1522 GMT)

ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) -- Turkey's most wanted Kurdish rebel leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was seized in a clandestine operation and will be tried in a Turkish court, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said Tuesday.

The announcement of Ocalan's arrest at the Greek Embassy in Kenya, under circumstances not quite clear yet, immediately sparked a wave of Kurdish protests across Europe, with some supporters of Ocalan's Kurdish Workers Party setting themselves on fire and many others occupying Greek diplomatic missions throughout Europe.

Ecevit, his voice shaking with emotion, announced Ocalan's arrest at a special news conference.

"We had promised that the state would catch him, we have kept our promise," Ecevit said. "He will pay the price of his actions to the independent Turkish courts."

Ecevit said that Ocalan's capture was the result of a 12-day covert operation, adding that Ocalan had been flown back to Turkey, where he arrived in the early morning hours.

Turkey wants to try Ocalan for waging a guerrilla war for Kurdish autonomy that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in the past 15 years, mostly in southeastern Turkey, where most of the Turkish Kurds live.

By some estimates, the conflict has killed more than 30,000 people, many of them civilians.

If found guilty, Ocalan could face the death penalty. Turkey has, however, not carried out a death sentence for many years.

Ecevit did not provide any details of Ocalan's arrest. But a lawyer for Ocalan said that Ocalan had been tricked into agreeing to be handed over by the Greek Embassy in Nairobi to Kenyan authorities. Ocalan has lived in exile since 1980 and has sought asylum in a number of countries in recent months.

"According to my information, my client was yesterday, based on a misrepresentation of the situation by the Kenyan authorities, effectively dragged out of the Greek Embassy," said lawyer Eberhard Schultz on German television.

The Kenyan government, however, said it had simply asked Greece to remove Ocalan from its territory after it discovered he was being harbored at the Greek Embassy in Nairobi. It said it had no idea about what happened next.

"The baseline is this: We want to tell all concerned, Kurds included, that we had no role in this matter," a government statement said.

A Greek government statement in turn said Ocalan had passed into the hand of Kenyan authorities: "The Greek government...provided a place to stay in Kenya where (Ocalan) went after efforts to find refuge."

Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos threatened to take action against Kurdish activists unless the occupations of Greek diplomatic missions throughout Europe were ended.

Greece, often at odds with its neighbor and NATO ally Turkey, inherited the Ocalan problem this year after he was denied refuge by, or was forced out of, Lebanon, Syria, Russia, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries.

Most of Tuesday's protests were directed against Greek missions in European cities, including London, Moscow, Paris, Berlin and Brussels.

Two pro-Kurdish protesters set themselves ablaze in Athens and Copenhagen.

About 50 Kurdish demonstrators occupied the Greek Embassy in Brussels, dousing themselves with gasoline and threatening to set themselves alight if police should decide to drive them out.

About 40 Kurdish protesters also broke into the U.N. European headquarters in Geneva.

Correspondents Peter Humi, Richard Blystone, Nic Robertson, and The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.