Two of the suspects, alleged members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), risk life sentences without parole for their role in carrying out the attacks in a crowded Istanbul street, Anatolia said.

The two are accused of acting as watchmen while a fellow militant planted and detonated the bombs, it said, adding that the police were still looking for the unidentified third suspect.

The remaining seven defendants risk sentences of between seven and 45 years in prison on charges of possessing explosives, bomb-making and belonging to the PKK, the report said.

It was not immediately clear when the trial will begin.

The bombs were planted in a crowded pedestrian street in the residential district of Gungoren and detonated by mobile telephone.

Ten minutes after a first bomb drew a large crowd of onlookers, a second and more powerful device went off, killing 17 people, including five children and a pregnant woman. More than 150 people were injured.

Officials said the attacks were the work of the PKK, which has waged a bloody campaign for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. The group denied responsibility.

The blasts were the deadliest attack on civilians in Turkey since 2003 when two sets of twin suicide bombings, blamed on Al-Qaeda, killed 63 people in Istanbul.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 44,000 lives.