The hearing at Venice Tribunal in which KonKurd president Nizamettin Toguc will learn his fate as to the extradition request made by Turkey, ended a few minutes ago. According to the Italian lawyers of Mr Toguc the hearing exposed the weakness of the case made by Turkey. The president of the Court will announce his decision later this afternoon.

Toguc was arrested last July while on holiday in Italy with his family. The Venice Court of Appeal decided that Toguc, who is a Dutch citizen should be freed but should wait the verdict on the extradition in Italy. Since the summer Toguc has been living in Padova.

The Prosecutor further asked for Toguc to sign at the police station. Turkey sent quite a big dossier about Toguc explaining that as he is the president of KonKurd, and has been among the founders of the Kurdish Parliament in Exile, he therefore is a member of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) and because the PKK is on the terrorist organizations list in Europe must be detained and extradited.

The defense lawyer, Arturo Salerni, argued that Turkey actually offered the best defense of his client, basically admitting that the extradition request is indeed a political motivated request. And that precisely because it is a political motivated request could not be accepted.

Not only that, lawyer Salerni reminded the Court of Appeal that Italy has indeed granted political asylum to Abdullah Ocalan, president of the PKK, in doing so recognizing the persecution of the Kurdish political movement.