The 11 judges resumed their discussions at 9:30 am (0730 GMT) after spending 12 hours on the case on Tuesday, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The president of the court, Hasim Kilic, said late Tuesday the volume of evidence to consider meant a judgment was highly unlikely before Friday.

Turkey's chief prosecutor initiated the case against the Democratic Society Party (DTP), which holds 21 seats in the 550-member parliament, in 2007.

The prosecutor argued the DTP had become a "focal point" of activities against national unity through its links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has led a bloody 25-year insurgency in the southeast.

Turkey and much of the international community regard the PKK as a terrorist group.

Anatolia also reported that four people, including three soldiers who had fought against the PKK, were detained after a DTP office in Ankara came under automatic gunfire early Wednesday.

Aside from a possible dissolution of the DTP, the court could order eight of its lawmakers and a number of other officials to be banned from politics.

Party leaders have warned that dissolving the DTP will fuel fresh tensions in the southeast and threatened to abandon parliament.

DTP co-chairman Ahmet Turk said Monday party lawmakers would resign from their seats if the court shuts down the party.

The party says it has "no organic links" with the PKK, but insists the group should be considered an interlocutor in efforts to resolve the Kurdish conflict, a suggestion Ankara categorically rejects.

Turkey's government has recently begun a drive to expand Kurdish freedoms, in the hope of eroding support for the PKK insurgency, but the initiative has recently faltered amid renewed unrest in the Kurdish-majority southeast.

The DTP was founded in 2005 as a successor to several Kurdish parties that were shut down for collaborating with the PKK.