GERMANY: Islamic militant Metin Kaplan released from prison after court rejects Turkish government's bid for his extradition on treason charges

Record ID: 863435

  • Title: GERMANY: Islamic militant Metin Kaplan released from prison after court rejects Turkish government's bid for his extradition on treason charges
  • Date: 27th May 2003
  • Summary: (U5) DUESSELDORF, GERMANY (MAY 27, 2003) (REUTERS) SLV POLICE VAN DRIVING INTO PRISON GATES SLV POLICEMEN OUTSIDE PRISON SLV CAR ARRIVING AT PRISON TO PICK UP METIN KAPLAN, ISLAMIST MILITANT SLV DRIVER SPEAKING TO POLICEMEN OUTSIDE PRISON GATES (2 SHOTS) SLV RED CAR ARRIVING AND WOMAN IN ISLAMIC OUTFIT TALKING TO POLICE SLV CAR LEAVING PRISON PREMISES, METIN KAPLAN SEEN THROUGH REAR WINDOW IN BACK OF CAR SLV CAR DRIVING OFF, FOLLOWING BY RED CAR WITH
  • Embargoed: 11th June 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: DUESSELDORF AND COLOGNE, GERMANY
  • City:
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVACUVCEMCHX7T6KE1FGMXPLY624
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  • Story Text: A German court has rejected a Turkish bid to have an Islamist militant extradited back home to face treason charges.
    The court in the western German city of Duesseldorf on Tuesday (May 27) lifted a detention order pending extradition for Metin Kaplan and ordered him to be freed.
    Turkey had sought Kaplan's extradition to face treason charges. He is accused of ordering his followers to crash an aircraft into the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern secular Turkish state, in 1998.
    Kaplan, who wants to establish an Islamic state in Turkey, is the leader of a Cologne-based group known as the Kalifatstaat (Caliphate State) that was banned in 2001 to stop what the German government called its extremist activities.
    He was held in detention in Germany pending a decision on extradition after serving a four-year jail term for calling for the murder of a rival religious leader. A spokesman for Duesseldorf prison said Kaplan had left jail on Tuesday morning.
    The Duesseldorf court said it had rejected the extradition bid as it believed that evidence Turkish police had extracted from Kaplan's followers by torture since 1998 might be used in proceedings against him in violation of international law.
    Since it emerged that several of the suicide hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities lived in Germany, Berlin has clamped down on Islamic groups including that of Kaplan, despite not finding any links to the September 11 plotters.
    After the decision of the Turkish parliament last year to abolish the death penalty, Interior Minister Otto Schily had said he expected Kaplan to be extradited to Ankara.
    Germany is home to about three million Muslims, mostly Turks.
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