ISTANBUL - Istanbul Criminal Court rejected one more time on Thursday the demands of 6 detainees who were members of al-Qaeda organization and who asked for their release.
The court ordered that Hakan Caliskan, Seckin Mandaci, Umit Bayrak, Evren Hidiroglu, Memis Arli and Burhan Perk be kept in prison.
The trial of al-Qaida members opened last month but the court ruled that it did not have authority (to try the suspects) because of recent legal reforms which abolished the State Security Courts (DGM). The court agreed to begin to take up the case after Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer signed into law a draft giving a new mandate to the court.
Istanbul suffered a series of devastating suicide truck bomb attacks targeting Neve Shalom and Beth Israel Synagogues on November 15, 2003 and on HSBC Bank headquarters and British Consulate General on November 20, 2003, in which 61 people, including British Consul General Roger Short, were killed and more than 700 people were injured.
Al-Qaeda organization claimed responsibility for those attacks. Turkish police arrested 69 people in connection with the suicide attacks.
(GC-ULG) 16.09.2004