The man named by the court as Ramazan Gokalp, 31, has refugee status in Austria and was arrested in late August at Varna airport in eastern Bulgaria on a European warrant.

Both Austria and The Netherlands had already turned down requests from Turkey for Gokalp's extradition. The ruling by the Varna court is final and cannot be appealed.

The PKK, listed by Ankara and much of the international community as "terrorist," has been battling for an independent homeland in southeastern Turkey since 1984, in a conflict that has claimed 45,000 lives.

Last week Kurdish rebels killed 24 Turkish soldiers and wounded 18 near the Iraqi border, the army's biggest losses since 1993, prompting several days of land and air operations against suspected PKK bases in both Turkey and neighbouring Iraq.