ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish prosecutors have charged nine people with killing a top judge and bombing a secularist newspaper, attacks which fueled tensions between the government and hardline secularists, Turkish media said late on Wednesday. The prosecutors said the shooting at the top administrative court, the Council of State, was an attack on the secular order as the court had upheld rules restricting the wearing of the Muslim headscarf and faced fierce criticism in Islamist circles. The Ankara prosecutor’s office has completed the indictment over the killing of a senior Council of State judge in May, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. According to popular newspaper Hurriyet, the indictment statement said the attack was linked to the headscarf ban.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Police detonated a small bomb in a controlled explosion at the offices of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in western Turkey yesterday, a local party official told Reuters. The official said the explosive device, which caused little damage and no casualties, had been found in a plastic bag at the entrance to the offices in the Balcova district of the Aegean Sea port province of Izmir. “It was a percussion bomb and was detonated under police control. There is no significant damage,” said Soner Kilinc, AKP spokesman in the party’s Izmir office.

A local court in Sarajevo sentenced a former Bosnian army soldier to 14.5 years in prison yesterday for his participation in the killing of eight Sarajevo Serbs during the 1992-95 war. Samir Bejtic, 37, was a member of a Sarajevo-based brigade of the Bosnian army, which was led by Musan Topalovic, a Bosnian Muslim warlord known as Caco. Topalovic was killed in a government sweep on criminals at the end of 1993 after authorities established that he and members of his brigade had executed more than two dozen Serb civilians from Sarajevo and left their bodies in a pit at the edge of the city. (AP)

A prosecutor yesterday demanded prison sentences for the director of a state museum and nine other people suspected of involvement in the theft of at least two pieces from the 6th century BC treasure of King Croesus. Prosecutor Mustafa Celebi formally charged the 10 in an indictment demanding that a court sentence museum director Kazim Akbiyiklioglu and seven others to up to 25 years in prison for involvement in the theft of a coin and a gold brooch in the shape of a winged sea horse, that were taken from Usak Museum in western Turkey and replaced with fakes. (AP)

Serbia’s government representative began a four-day visit to Kosovo yesterday to meet with the Serb minority in the province, as talks continue between the former foes to resolve its disputed status. Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, Serbia’s envoy for Kosovo, will be touring Serb villages and promote projects financed by the Serbian government in the province. She will also meet with UN officials during her visit. “If it is to the benefit of the Serbs, we will negotiate with the devil himself,” said Raskovic-Ivic on the ongoing talks to find a settlement for the rovince’s disputed status. (AP)