Turkey: Iran Implicated in Murder of Turkish Intellectuals

An Ankara court has accused the Iranian government of supporting Islamic extremists in Turkey in plotting the murder of several secular Turkish intellectuals including a well-known liberal journalist and three university professors.

The main suspect, Farhan Osman, was sentenced on Monday to life imprisonment, while the court handed out 9 to 15 year sentences to 11 other defendants.

"The Islamic Republic, in its efforts to export the ideology on which it is founded, has contributed decisively to the birth of small extremist Islamic Turkish groups that planned and carried out the attacks," said the court.