Court overturns Turk officers' sentences in blast

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, May 16 (Reuters) Turkey's Supreme Court overturned a 40-year jail term on Wednesday imposed on two paramilitary officers over their role in a controversial bombing two years ago, the state-run Anatolian news agency said.

The bombing of a bookstore in the eastern town of Semdinli shined a spotlight on Turkey's so-called ''deep state'', code for elements in the security forces and state bureaucracy ready to take the law into their own hands in pursuit of their aims.

The blast, which killed one person, sparked riots across Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast amid claims by mainstream media that security forces had deliberately planned it to stir up unrest in the region, long blighted by separatist violence.

The Supreme Court quashed the sentences of 39 years and five months dished out to each of the two non-commissioned officers, Ali Kaya and Ozcan Ildeniz, saying there had been shortcomings in the investigation.

The court recommended their case be re-examined by a local military court.

The case, peppered with controversy, has been seen as a test case of European Union candidate Turkey's judicial system.

Last year a public prosecutor was fired after he accused the head of Turkey's military General Staff, Yasar Buyukanit, of organising an illegal group to carry out the bombing. Buyukanit was head of Turkey's land forces at the time of the blast.

The prosecutor said Buyukanit was trying to foment unrest and harm Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

The armed forces denied all the accusations. Buyukanit recently described the Semdinli affair as a ''legal disaster''. The EU has expressed concern over the sacking of the official and has demanded a full and transparent investigation.

A former guerrilla of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is also serving a 40-year jail sentence for the November 9, 2005, attack in the small border town near Iran and Iraq.

Security forces have been battling the PKK since it launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984, in a conflict that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.

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