ANKARA, Jan 31 (AFP) A Turkish appeals court on Wednesday overturned heavy jail
 terms imposed on leaders of the country's main Kurdish party on the grounds that the crimes for
 which they were convicted had been pardoned under a recent amnesty, the Anatolia news
 agency reported.

 The court's decision meant that Murat Bozlak, the chairman of the pro-Kurdish People's
 Democracy Party (HADEP), and his predecessor Ahmet Turan Demir would escape from
 45-month prison terms handed down for aiding and abetting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

 The appeals court also overturned jail terms of 45 months each against 16 other HADEP
 members sentenced along with Bozlak and Turan on the same charges.

 The court's ruling came under a much-criticized amnesty law passed by parliament in
 December, granting prisoners a 10-year reduction in their sentences -- thus ensuring freedom for
 more than half of Turkey's 72,000 prisoners.

 The HADEP leaders and the remaining defendants were convicted in February last year of
 involvement in HADEP-run hunger strikes and demonstrations in support of now-jailed PKK
 leader Abdullah Ocalan, when he was in exile in Italy from November 1998 to January 1999.

 Ocalan has since been brought to Turkey and sentenced to death for treason. His execution has
 been put on hold by the Ankara government following protests from Europe.

 Turkish officials say HADEP is controlled by the PKK, which declared an end to its 15-year
 armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey and said it wanted to pursue a
 peaceful resolution to the conflict.

 HADEP, which seeks a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question, denies the charges against
 it, but nontheless faces a possible ban for allegedly maintaining close links to the rebels.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com