Nine charged over Turkish bombings

ISTANBUL - A Turkish court has charged nine people on suspicion of involvement in suicide attacks that killed dozens of people at the British consulate and the headquarters of a British-based bank in Istanbul.

The state-run Anatolian news agency said the court had charged the nine people with "belonging to, aiding and abetting an illegal organisation" after a lengthy interrogation of the suspects.

It said three other people detained by police after last Thursday's explosions had been freed.

Groups apparently linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network have claimed responsibility for the November 20 attacks on the consulate and the Turkey headquarters of the London-based HSBC Bank in which 30 people were killed.

The blasts came five days after similar suicide bomb attacks on two synagogues in Istanbul in which 25 people died.

The suspects include relatives of the bombers who came from Bingol, a centre of Islamic fundamentalism in the impoverished and mainly Kurdish southeast near the border with Iran.

Turkey, which began on Tuesday to celebrate the annual Eid al-Fitr holiday, known in Turkey as Bayram, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, has stepped up security at key sites, fearing further attacks.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said an al Qaeda link has not yet been proved but that the four suicide bombers were Turkish citizens who had global connections.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul dismissed reports a team of British detectives now in Turkey would visit the city of Bingol, where Turkish police have already seized computers from internet cafes owned by a brother of one of the four bombers.

Bingol residents said the two synagogue bombers - Mesut Cabuk and Gokhan Elaltuntas - had been buried in shame recently at dead of night with only close family in attendance.

The US ambassador to Turkey said he believed al Qaeda might well have been involved in plotting the attacks.

"I think the sophistication of the attacks...is consistent with the pattern...we have seen from al Qaeda," Eric Edelman said in televised remarks after talks with Istanbul's mayor.

Edelman reiterated President George W. Bush's offer of support for Turkey, a NATO ally often held up by Washington as a secular and democratic role model for the Muslim world.

"We will provide assistance in bringing the perpetrators (of these attacks) to justice," he said.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer visited Ankara on Monday to underline Berlin's solidarity with Turkey, a candidate for European Union membership.

"I support Turkey's accession to the EU," he said. But Fischer added that Turkey must first fully implement the necessary political and human rights reforms.

The bombings have stirred debate in the EU, especially in Germany, home to a large Turkish immigrant population, over what impact, if any, they should have on Turkey's candidacy.

EU leaders are due to decide in December 2004 whether Turkey is ready to begin what are sure to be complex entry talks.

Turkey is also emerging from a deep recession, sparked by a financial crisis in 2001 which scared away many foreign investors. Erdogan on Monday accused the perpetrators of the attack of trying to undermine the recovery.

"Why are we seeing a display of these savage games just as Turkey's...broken hopes are mending?" he said in a televised address to the nation on Monday.

"These games are being played now because, with God's permission, Turkey is beginning to stand on its feet again, Turkey is becoming strong again, the dark clouds over its economy are dispersing."

- REUTERS