ARRESTED KURDS ACCUSED OF FINANCING PKK REMANDED IN CUSTODY

19.2.2013 – AFP / MESOP – PARIS:  Seven out of seventeen Kurds who were taken into custody in the French cities of Bordeaux and Toulouse on 12 February have been arrested on Monday.

Among seventeen detainees, four were released on conditions of judicial surveillance, while twelve were referred to a court in Paris on Saturday. The court ruled to listen to one of the detainees as a witness, while it initiated a criminal case against the other eleven. The operation against Kurds in France, ordered by anti-terror prosecutors and carried out by police forces, was reportedly conducted in the scope of an investigation launched against Kurds in March 2012 for alleged “attempt to fundraising to provide financial support to PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party)”.

The operation against Kurds coincided with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s visit to France where met his counterpart Laurant Fabius on the same day. Many other earlier operations against Kurds living in France had similarly come before or after talks between Turkish and French authorities.