Members of Turkish Hizbullah sentenced to life

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, June 25 (Reuters) Ten members of banned Turkish Islamist organisation Hizbullah were sentenced to life in prison today after a 13-year-long trial for killing 24 people and carrying out bomb attacks during the 1990s.

One suspect was acquitted.

The trial had been delayed in part by a supreme court ruling that annulled sentences passed on eight of the 10 in 1999, citing a faulty investigation.

Hizbullah, which is not believed to be linked to the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, emerged in the late 1980s during fighting between Kurdish separatist guerrillas and Turkish troops. It killed scores of people, targeting mainly Kurdish separatist rebel sympathisers.

That prompted suggestions the group, which sought to replace Turkey's secular order with a state based on Islamic law, had state approval. But Ankara denied that was so, and launched a crackdown in 2000.

Another 20 Hizbullah members were sentenced to life in prison in February.

REUTERS SKB KP1854