ANKARA (AFP) - A Turkish court has cleared 405 soldiers of the torture and rape of a Kurdish woman in custody in a controversial case dating back more than a decade, a lawyer for the plaintiff said yesterday. The court ruled Monday there was no evidence to determine which of the defendants had actually committed the alleged crimes, attorney Reyhan Yalcindag told AFP. The 34-year-old woman, known only as S.E., claimed she was blindfolded when she was tortured and raped, leading the prosecution to charge all 405 soldiers who served during that period in two paramilitary stations in the southeastern province of Mardin where she claims she was abused in the early 1990s.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The man who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981 has warned the current pope not to visit Turkey, saying his life would be in danger, his lawyer said on yesterday. The comments came amid a furor in the Muslim world over Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on Islam and ahead of his scheduled visit to Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, in November. “As someone who knows these matters well, I say your life is in danger. Don’t come to Turkey,” Mehmet Ali Agca said in comments released in a statement by his lawyer Mustafa Demirbag. “Also, I won’t be able to meet you as I am in prison,” Agca said.

A court in Montenegro ruled yesterday against the state in the case of a Bosnian Muslim refugee deported back to his war-engulfed country in 1992, where he was slain by ethnic rivals. The court awarded 68,000 euros ($86,000) to the family of the victim, Suad Karacic, who was 28 when he died. The ruling effectively acknowledges that the authorities were responsible for the death of the man, who sought shelter in Montenegro from the war. (AP)

An Ankara court fined journalist Erbil Tusalp for allegedly insulting the Turkish prime minister in an article, the state-owned Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. Tusalp was ordered to pay 5,000 new Turkish lira ($3,400 or 2,690 euros) for an article titled, “Get well soon,” that was published in the pro-Kurdish newspaper Birgun, the report said. In the article, Tusalp said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was “psychopathically aggressive” and said “it should be researched whether he suffered from a severe fever at a young age,” Anatolia said. (AP)