Qablan denies Turkey’s accusation of calling for the overthrow of the secular Ankara government

By Khaled Schmitt, IOL Germany Correspondent

BONN, May 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A German court turned down on Tuesday, May 27, a request by German and Turkish governments to extradite a Turkish Islamic leader, accused of planning the overthrow of Turkey’s secular regime and explosion of the mausoleum of its founder Mostafa Kamal Ataturk.

The court in Duesseldorf, western Germany, ruled against Metin Kablan's extradition on the grounds that he might be exposed to human rights abuses if he were returned to Turkey and released him from custody.

There were "serious grounds" to assume that Turkish authorities might use evidence obtained in 1998 through the torture of other group members, which would be akin to political persecution, the court said.

Kaplan, who ended a four-year prison term in Germany in March 2003 for inciting group members to kill a political rival, is the head of the "Caliphat", or Hilafet Devleti, which was set up by his father in the western city of Cologne in 1984.

Turkey accused Kablan of planning to oust the country’s secular regime and its replacement by an Islamic state and ordering members of his group to crash a plane into Ataturk’s mausoleum in October 1998. The Islamic leader had denied the accusations, saying he only stands against Turkey’s secularism.

But the German court said in a statement that it fears his life would be threatened if he was extradited, citing official Turkey documents of earlier torture of his group members.

“Keblan’s extradition means approval of his torture and unfair trial,” the court said in a statement.

Former Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s government lodged an official request to the German government calling for Keblan’s extradition three years ago.

Dual Criticism

The court’s ruling was criticized by the German and Turkish governments as unfair and rash.

German Interior Minister Otto Schilly regretted the non-extradition, saying that he was repeatedly assured by Turkish officials that Qablan would be treated in accordance with international laws.

“It is a rash decision by the court,” said Schilly is statements quoted on the website of the Vox magazine.

The German official said that the ruling would not affect procedures to expel Kablan from the European country.

German authorities outlawed Kablan’s group in December 2001, claiming it was anti-democratic and anti-Semitic.

Turkey criticized the German court's decision as “based on baseless hypotheses”.

"We regret that the rejection of the extradition request should be based on baseless hypotheses and not on legal reasons," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Questions raised by the court regarding the authority and functions of the independent judiciary of Turkey, a state based on the rule of law, are unacceptable," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted the statement as saying.

The statement charged that the court decision did not conform with Germany’s obligations to fight international terrorism.