ANKARA - The Turkish parliament Wednesday passed a legal ammendment paving the way for authorities to restrict contacts between jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan and his lawyers.
Ocalan's attorneys have long been accused of acting as intermediaries between the rebel leader and his Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a bloody 15-year war for self-rule in southeastern Turkey and is considered a terrorist group by Ankara.
The amendment allows for authorities to impose restrictions on contacts between prisoners and lawyers if their meetings constitute a crime, endanger the security of the prison or serve as a means of communication between members of terrorist and other criminal groups.
In such cases, the authorities would be empowered to appoint an official to attend meetings between prisoners and their lawyers and examine and confiscate documents that they wish to exchange.
The amendment was part of a package of changes to a law regulating the execution of sentences and security measures.
Ocalan was condemned to death for treason in 1999, but his sentence was later commuted to life in prison after Turkey abolished capital punishment as part of efforts to align with European Union norms.
He is the sole inmate in the prison island of Imrali, in northwestern Turkey.
Earlier this month, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ocalan's trial was unfair on the grounds that the court that convicted him was not impartial and he was not given adequate time to prepare his defense.
Turkey is now under pressure to retry him.
05/25/2005 12:19 GMT