ANKARA - An Austrian reporter, arrested in Turkey more than 20 days ago, is set to be tried on charges of membership in a notorious Turkish extreme-left underground group but is likely to be acquitted, one of her lawyers said Thursday.
Sandra Bakutz, who works for the Austrian radio Orange 94.0 and the German newspaper Junge Welt, was detained on February 10 upon arrival in Istanbul to cover the trial of 82 people arrested in an international sweep last year against a the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C).
She was formally put under arrest the next day on account of an arrest warrant issued in absentia by a court in Ankara in 2000 and was jailed pending trial, attorney Taylan Tanay told AFP.
He said the date of the trial had not yet been set. The charge calls for a prison term of at least five years.
The arrest warrant was based on a Turkish newspaper report which said Bakutz had helped a number of DHKP-C militants gain access to the European parliament building in Brussels for a protest against former Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem during a speech in 2000, Taylan said.
An indictment issued recently charged her with membership of an illegal organization -- namely the DHKP-C, a Marxist group which has been blacklisted by both the European Union and the United States.
"But the charges levelled against her are baseless so she will most probably be acquitted," Taylan said.
Turkey has often been rapped by human rights activists and its western allies for violating press freedom and prosecuting journalists for criticising the state.
Ankara has since passed a number of laws to ensure more freedom to the press in a bid to catch up with international norms and realise its dream of joining the European Union.
03/03/2005 11:59 GMT