Trial begins of pro-Kurdish leader in Turkey on 'terror' links: party

Thursday, 7 December, 2017 , 08:46

Ankara, Dec 7, 2017 (AFP) — The co-leader of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition party went on trial in Ankara Thursday on charges of links to outlawed Kurdish militants, after over a year behind bars in a case supporters say is politically motivated, his party said.

Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the second largest opposition bloc the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), was detained in November 2016 and is charged with "managing a terror organisation" and "making propaganda for a terror group". His trial got under way at Sincan prison complex in Ankara province, a HDP official told AFP.