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Kurdish party leader risks 10 years in jail in Turkey: report

ANKARA, March 28, 2008 (AFP) - The leader of Turkey's main Kurdish party risks up to 10 years in jail on charges of evading military service with a false medical report, Anatolia news agency reported Friday.

Nurettin Demirtas, chairman of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), will go on trial in mid-April along with 97 others, including men accused of obtaining similar reports and doctors who provided the documents, Anatolia reported.

The indictment said a medical examination had established that Demirtas was fit for military service, which is compulsory in Turkey, it said.

The 35-year-old Demirtas, known as a hardliner on the Kurdish conflict, was arrested in December, shortly after he was elected DTP chairman, as part of a nationwide investigation.

He had earlier served time in jail for belonging to the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a bloody 23-year campaign for self-rule in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey.

The DTP itself is currently on trial at the Constitutional Court for alleged links to the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, and faces the risk of being outlawed.