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Turkish Kurd politician sentenced for praising rebel leader

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, April 10, 2008 (AFP) - A court here Thursday sentenced Kurdish politician Leyla Zana to two years' imprisonment for praising jailed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The court in this central city of Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast sentenced Zana under a law that penalises "propaganda of a terrorist organisation."

Zana, 47, who has already spent a decade in jail for collaborating with the PKK, said she would appeal.

The charges stem from a speech she made in March 2007 at a Kurdish festival here, counting Ocalan among Kurdish national leaders along with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Massud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdish administration of northern Iraq.

"I am grateful to those three leaders... They all have a place in the hearts and minds of the Kurds," the indictment quoted her as saying.

The PKK, which has waged a bloody campaign for self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984, is listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community.

Ocalan, who was captured in Kenya in 1999, is serving a life sentence on a prison island in northwest Turkey.

Zana, 1995 laureate of the European Parliament's Sakharov human rights award, and several other Kurds were elected to parliament in 1991, but lost their seats three years later after their party was outlawed for links with the PKK.

Zana and three colleagues spent 10 years behind bars for collaborating with the rebels. They were released in June 2004.