STRASBOURG, March 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Europe's top human rights court on Wednesday, March 12, condemned Turkey for failing to give a fair trial to Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, now serving a life term in isolation in a remote island jail.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ocalan's rights were violated by the lack of an "independent and impartial tribunal" and again when he was given the death penalty, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

Turkey's foreign ministry said that Ankara would appeal the ruling, saying parts of the decision did not reflect "amendments in our laws which are directly linked to some claims (by Ocalan) and the defense we had presented."

Ocalan was Turkey's most wanted man for nearly two decades over his role in the struggle carried out by his Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which left more than 30,000 people dead. He was arrested in 1999.

Although the court's ruling is not binding on Turkey, the decision will be seen as a blow to the country's efforts to improve its human rights record, seen as a prerequisite for joining the European Union.

"To impose a death sentence on a person after an unfair trial was to subject that person wrongfully to the fear that he would be executed," the court said in its ruling, saying that sentence amounted to a "form of inhuman treatment."

The court also ruled that Turkey had violated the European Convention on Human Rights on other counts by limiting his access to his attorneys and case files, and having a military judge seated on the state security court that tried him.

"The presence of a military judge could only have served to raise doubts in the accuser’s mind as to the independence and impartiality of the court," the European judges wrote.

The Strasbourg court ordered Turkey to pay Ocalan's lawyers 100,000 euros (110,400 dollars) for costs and expenses.

Turkey has been trying to join the European Union but has not yet been granted a start date for accession talks. The EU has said it will review Ankara's candidacy in December 2004 before setting a date for talks to begin.

Ocalan, who was captured in Kenya by Turkish authorities in February 1999, was sentenced to death in June that year.

His sentence was commuted to life in prison after Turkey abolished capital punishment as part of reforms to bring Ankara in line with EU norms.

The judges said that although the "threat of implementation of the death sentence had been effectively removed," the initial fear that it would be enforced "must give rise to a significant degree of human anguish."

"Such anguish could not be dissociated from the unfairness of the proceedings underlying the sentence," it said.

Ocalan is currently the sole inmate of a jail on the Marmara Sea island of Imrali, south of Istanbul. His lawyers have criticized the conditions of his incarceration, charging they amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

But the court ruled that his living conditions "had not reached the minimum level of severity necessary to constitute inhuman or degrading treatment" under the European rights convention.