Indictment Filed Against a Suspected Member of the Foreign Terrorist Organisation “Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)”

Year of issue 2024
Date 31.10.2024

On 18 October 2024, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office filed an indictment against

Turkish national Selahattin K.

before the State Security Chamber of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court.

There are reasonable grounds to suspect the accused of participation as a member in the foreign terrorist organisation “Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)” (section 129b para. 1 in conjunction with section 129a para. 1 no. 1 of the German Criminal Code [StGB]).

In essence, the indictment sets out the following allegations:

Between January 2014 and July 2015, Selahattin K. served as a full-time PKK cadre and performed decision-making tasks that are typical of a “head of sector”. They included especially the coordination of the organisational, personnel and propaganda affairs of the organisation, at first in “Sector South 1” composed of the subordinate areas “Darmstadt”, “Frankfurt am Main”, “Gießen”, “Mannheim”, “Nürnberg”, and “Saarbrücken”, followed by “Sector Centre” composed of the areas “Bielefeld”, “Bonn”, “Dortmund”, “Düsseldorf”, “Duisburg”, “Essen”, “Cologne”, and “Münster”. The accused gave orders to subordinate “heads of area”, cadres and activists and oversaw their execution. He participated in the organisation and implementation of propagandist events and gatherings. As for Selahattin K., he reported to the PKK’s so-called European leadership and had to obey its orders.

The accused had been detained in Italy since 12 June 2024 in execution of a European Arrest Warrant and was subsequently extradited to Germany to face prosecution. He has since been held in pre-trial detention (see Press Release No. 44 of 19 August 2024).