Gunman kills Turkish judge, injures 4 in court attack

ANKARA, May 17 (Reuters) A Turkish gunman, proclaiming his Islamic faith, today killed one judge and injured four other judges in a shooting in a top court which Turkey's president condemned as an attack on its secular establishment.

The top administrative court's deputy chairwoman said the assailant described himself as a ''soldier of Allah'' as he carried out the attack. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said it would go down as a ''black mark in the Republic's history''.

The court, the Council of State, has faced fierce criticism in Islamist circles for hardline implementation of secular laws such as a headscarf ban in universities and state offices.

The attack is a stark reminder of the great divide between Turkey's secularists and those they perceive as Islamists bent on reviving the influence of religion in national life.

The attacker, a young lawyer, burst into the court's second chamber and started shooting with a handgun during a committee meeting at around 1230 Hrs IST. He was arrested soon after.

The CNN Turk Web site reported the assailant as saying in interrogation he had targeted the judges because of a ruling in February preventing a woman from becoming a head teacher because she wore a headscarf. It did not give a source for the report.

''It is seen that this is an attack against our Republic and our Republic's irrevocable democratic and secular character,'' Sezer, a staunch secularist, said in a rare comment to reporters after visiting the court.

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