Leyla Zana was convicted by a judge in southeastern Diyarbakir of having voilated the penal code and the anti-terror law in nine different speeches.

The 51-year-old was accused of having supported and spread propaganda in favour of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and praised its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Although Zana now enjoys immunity from prosecution as a member of the Turkish parliament, the case stems from before she was elected.

She was sentenced to 10 years in prison for membership of the PKK when the case was originally heard in 2008. But the country's supreme court of appeals overturned the ruling, and ordered a retrial.

It is expected that Zana's lawyer Fethi Gumus, who attended Thursday's hearing, will appeal the verdict.

Zana, who won a seat after standing as an independent in the 2011 election, was the first Kurdish woman to win a seat in the Turkish parliament in 1991.

One of the most outspoken Kurdish rights advocates, she was imprisoned between 1994 and 2004 for alleged links with the PKK.

Zana has received several human rights awards, including the European Parliament's Sakharov human rights award in 1995.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and by much of the international community, took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.