European Court Condemns Turkey for Bombing Kurds in 1994

The European Court on Human Rights Tuesday ruled that Turkey bombed two Kurdish villages in 1994, killing 33 people in an attack Ankara blamed on Kurdish separatists.

The Strasbourg-based court ordered Turkey to pay 2.3 million euros ($3.1 million) to 38 plaintiffs whose relatives were killed in the bombing and urged "further investigative steps into the incident."

"The court concluded that the Turkish government had conducted an aerial attack killing 33 of the applicants' relatives and injuring three of the applicants themselves," the ECHR said in a statement.

Ankara blamed the March 26, 1994 attacks on the villages of Kuskonar and Kocagili on the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

But the court ruled "as was generally the case in southeast Turkey at the time, they hastily blamed the killings on the PKK without any basis."

The Turks conducted an "extremely inadequate investigation" and much of the evidence collected was "merely hearsay", the Strasbourg judges ruled.

Ankara should provide the flight log of the planes used in the bombing as part of a broader probe into the deadly attacks "in order to identify and punish those responsible ... and prevent further impunity."

The bombing "had been ordered and carried out without the slightest concern for human life by the pilots or by their superiors, which they had then tried to cover up by refusing to hand over the flight log."

The ruling is not final and Turkey has three months to dispute it.