More than 20 suspected militants, including members of an extreme Islamist organization, were released from Turkish jails on Tuesday after a Supreme Court of Appeals ruling that limits to 10 years the time detainees can be held without being sentenced, New York Times reports.
Eighteen members of Turkish Hezbollah — a Sunni organization unrelated to the Shiite Hezbollah group active in Lebanon — and five members of the outlawed P.K.K., an armed Kurdish independence movement, were set free after having spent more than 10 years in jail awaiting the endorsement of their sentences by the Supreme Court of Appeals.
Under the Turkish legal system, any local court conviction has to be approved by the Supreme Court of Appeals before a sentence can be put into effect.
The practice of jailing detainees indefinitely without sentences has long disturbed human rights advocates, who were only slightly mollified by the court ruling. They say the 10-year limit, which was based on a recent amendment to the Turkish criminal code, does not go far enough in securing detainees’ rights.
