Suspect in Paris killing of three Kurdish activists before Judge

An associate of three female Kurdish activists shot dead in Paris appears in court on Monday for a hearing in connection with the triple murder, judicial sources said. 

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The man was one of two ethnic Kurds detained last week by a specialist anti-terrorist unit in relation to the January 9 slaying.

The other man has been freed without charge, the sources added.

The judge at Monday's hearing will decide whether to press charges against the suspect, who is thought to have been a driver for one of the victims.

The three women, one of them 55-year-old Sakine Cansiz, a co-founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), were found dead on the morning of January 10 at a Kurdish centre in the French capital.

They had all been repeatedly shot in the head.

The killings came against a background of tentative peace talks between Turkey and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, which are aimed at ending three decades of conflict which have claimed 45,000 lives.

Turkey has suggested the murders could be the result of an internal feud within the PKK between opponents and supporters of the negotiations with Turkey.

Kurdish groups suspect Turkish extremists with links to the security services were behind the Paris slaying, which they say is part of a pattern of recent attacks on Kurdish activists.

French police are examining the possibility of the killings having been linked to extortion rackets used to raise funds for the PKK from the large expatriate communities in western Europe.

Turkey and its Western allies regard the PKK as a terrorist organisation while the outlawed movement defends its armed rebellion as a legitimate struggle for self-determination.