The Larnaca district court on Tuesday postponed the extradition hearing of Kurdish detainee Cerkez Korkmaz, 60, who is wanted in Germany on alleged terrorism-related charges, pending clarification from Hamburg on the exact reasons he is being sought.
The extradition hearing is set to continue on April 10 and 12. The court agreed to release Korkmaz in the meantime provided that a sum of €30,000 was paid as a personal guarantee with a further €100,000 bond from a credible guarantor.
However, Korkmaz, who was arrested on March 22, was transported to the central prisons under heavy security after he failed to secure the bonds.
Korkmaz, who has been living in Cyprus for a number of years after being recognised as a political refugee and who possessed Cypriot travel documents, was arrested at Larnaca airport from where he was to travel to Athens, after it emerged during passport control that the German authorities had issued a European arrest warrant and extradition against him on March 19.
He was wanted in connection with terrorism offences allegedly committed between 2013 and 2015 in Germany, reportedly concerning links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Korkmaz, reportedly stayed in Germany between 2013 and 2014 and last visited the country in 2015.
His arrest caused a reaction in the Kurdish community living in Cyprus, which is calling for his release and which gathered to protest outside the court on Tuesday.
An online petition that has been launched, addressed to the justice minister, calling for Korkmaz’s release, argues that other European countries ignore such requests on Kurdish fighters.
According to the authors of the petition, Germany issued the arrest warrant against Korkmaz on the request of Turkey since the latter is unable to arrest Kurdish fighters “and is asking Germany to do its dirty work”.
Taking into account the hundreds of thousands of arrests and jail detentions in Turkey, the petition says, many European countries ignore such demands by Turkey against Kurdish fighters.
“It is disappointing to see that Cyprus is willing to apply such warrants, a country that has been invaded by Turkey and continues to deal with Turkish threats and interventions in the Cypriot exclusive, economic zone,” it says.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurdish fighters today live all over Europe as political refugees, it says, but Turkey, can, at any given moment, abolish and break the entire political asylum system with a simple ‘terrorism’ accusation. The petition gives as glaring example that of the case of “Kurdish leader” Abdullah Ocalan in which case “political asylum failed miserably.”
It said that the signatories are calling on political parties, trade unions, artistic and other organisations, on all democrats and supporters of the Kurdish struggle, “to mobilise for the immediate release of the Kurdish fighter.”
