A Turkish military court on Friday ordered jail terms of up to 30 months for eight defendants who were captured by the PKK in 2007 while serving in the army, judicial sources said.
The court in the eastern city of Van jailed one defendant for 30 months for insubordination and encouraging insubordination, the sources said. The others received jail terms of 15 and 20 months for negligence and insubordination, but their sentences were suspended.
The soldiers were abducted by the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, who ambushed a military unit at the village of Dağlıca, near the Iraqi border, on October 21, 2007, killing 12 troops. They were accused of failing to resist the terrorists, who took them to PKK bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. Critics of the trial said the troops are being punished for "not having died."