DIYARBAKIR: A Turkish court has jailed 10 men for more than six years for passing intelligence to Kurdish rebels before a deadly attack on a military unit in 2007, a court official said Thursday.
In its verdict late Wednesday, the court in the eastern city of Van found the suspects guilty of aiding a terrorist organization and handed each a prison sentence of six years and three months, the official said.
The October 2007 ambush, in which 12 soldiers died, was one of the bloodiest Kurdish attacks in recent years and paved the way for a Turkish cross-border operation against rebel bases in neighboring Iraq in 2008.
Among those jailed were two "village guards" — members of a Kurdish militia force armed and paid for by the state to help the army in the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The indictment accused the defendants of giving PKK rebels information on the number of soldiers and village guards stationed at the outpost close to Daglica village, near the border with Iraq, ahead of the attack.
The assault saw PKK rebels ambush a patrol near the outpost, killing 12 soldiers, wounding 17 and capturing eight others who were released two weeks later.
The ambush caused nationwide outrage and turned up pressure on the government to take military action to wipe out PKK hideouts in northern Iraq.
Four months later, the army crossed the border for a week-long offensive, in which, it said, at least 240 insurgents were killed and dozens of PKK bases destroyed.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms against the government in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.
