Hradec Kralove, East Bohemia, Nov 26 (CTK) – The Interpol-wanted Turkish man Nazmi Sahin, 30, convicted of a crime with a terrorist subtext, who was detained in Hradec Kralove on Tuesday was taken into preliminary extradition custody yesterday.
His lawyer Zuzana Dostalkova dismissed yesterday the speculations about terrorism, and said that he was rather convicted of political activities.
She will file a complaint that the High Court will deal with.
“The complaint does not have a suspensive effect and that is why he has been transported to a custody prison,” she said.
Dostalkova said Sahin was surprised at his detention in the Czech Republic “with which he has nothing in common. He was here only by chance, practically on a tourist trip.”
Dostalkova said Sahin was sentenced to six years in Turkey, but he did not start serve his sentence and he is now threatened with a higher punishment.
“It was something like dissident activities under the communists in this country,” Dostalkova said about what the man committed.
She said Sahin has been allegedly moving around Europe for six years. He also presented Italian documents to the police because he was allegedly granted political asylum in Italy.
“This is now being examined and it will take months before it is completed,” Dostalkova said.
State attorney Radek Soukup said yesterday the court sent the man to custody because he might flee.
Soukup told journalists yesterday that according to unofficial information, Sahin supported or promoted a certain organisation.
“For the time being, I will not name it, but we can rule out Islamic State and it is not the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) either,” he said.
Asked whether the unnamed organisation is banned in Turkey, Soukup said he does not know.
Court spokeswoman Katerina Podeszwova said the man had been detained on the basis of an international warrant of arrest issued in the Turkish town of Van on March 8, 2013.
She said the detained man had been sentenced to six years and three months in prison on March 30, 2007, but he never started serving the sentence.
According to original unofficial information, the man collaborated with the PKK that seeks the formation of an independent Kurdish state.
“The Czech Republic still considers the PKK a terrorist organisation,” the Foreign Ministry press department said yesterday.
“The latest series of terrorist attacks in Turkey, for which the PKK is responsible, claimed dozens of lives in September 2015,” the Foreign Ministry said.
However, the Czech Republic’s attitude to the PKK must not be mixed with the general attitude to Kurds, it added.
“The Czech Republic supports the Kurdish Peshmerga on the territory of Iraq in their fight against Islamic State,” the ministry said.
The preliminary custody is the sole type of custody in the Czech legal order without a set deadline. The man should stay in it until the proceedings for his extradition to another country are completed.
The police found out from available sources that the man was convicted of links to an organisation with political interests that are incompatible with Turkey’s system of government.
