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Kurdish mayor jailed in Turkey for 'praising' rebel leader

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, June 9, 2006 (AFP) - A Kurdish mayor in southeastern Turkey was sentenced to 15 months in jail Friday for remarks deemed as praise of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Aydin Budak, the mayor of Cizre town in the province of Sirnak, told AFP by telephone that the court found him guilty of "praising a criminal offender."

He said he would appeal against the sentence.

The case against Budak was launched after a speech he made in Cizre last year, in which he condemned Ocalan's solitary confinement on the prison island of Imrali in northwestern Turkey and criticized the authorities for restricting visits by his family.

Ocalan is the leader of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast since 1984, in a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

Kurdish politicians in Turkey are traditionally suspected of backing the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara, the European Union and the United States, and are often prosecuted for remarks deemed as a show of support for the group.

Budak belongs to the main Kurdish political party in Turkey, the Democratic Society Party.