DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, March 23 (AFP) A Turkish court rejected on Friday a plea by a
 former aide to jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan to benefit from a limited amnesty bill
 allowing repentant outlaws to receive lower penalties.

 The court did not allow Semdin Sakik, a former field commander in the Kurdistan Workers'
 Party (PKK) who was sentenced to death in 1999, to benefit from the amnest on the grounds
 that he held a leadership position in the group and was responsible for the perpetration of violent
 acts.

 The law, known as the "repentance bill," is applicable to "terrorists" who lay down their arms,
 turn themselves in and reveal information about their group.

 But it strictly excludes founders and high-ranking political or military cadres of illegal groups or
 any members who have killed or wounded Turkish security forces.

 Sakik was condemned to death in 1999 for treason and separatism over his role in the PKK's
 15-year armed campaign for self-rule in southeastern Turkey.

 In his plea to the court last April, Sakik renounced the PKK's armed struggle and harshly
 criticized its leader Ocalan, who was also sentenced to death for treason in June 1999.

 Sakik was a leading commander for the PKK before he fell out with Ocalan over strategy.

 He later defected from the PKK and took refuge along with his brother with a Kurdish faction in
 northern Iraq, that controls the region along the Turkish border.

 In 1998, Turkish commandos snatched the Sakik brothers in a lightning operation in the area.

 Fighting in Turkey's southeast has diminished notably since September 1999 when the rebels
 said they were laying down their arms and withdrawing from Turkish territory to seek a peaceful
 resolution to the conflict, which has so far claimed some 36,500 lives.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com