A Turkish court sentenced three men to death for the killings of four prominent writers and academics in an alleged plan to establish an Islamic state in Turkey. The three were found guilty in the slaying of journalist Ugur Mumcu, killed by a car bomb in 1993, and three other prominent secular writers and intellectuals during the 1990s. The verdict ended a 17-month trial in which prosecutors accused the defendants of membership in shadowy Islamic extremist groups, such as Tevhid-Selam and the Jerusalem Warriors. The groups were said to advocate replacing Turkey's strictly secular system with a state based on Islamic law.
The sad part is that it takes 17 months to put away the hard boys who spent just a few days killing their betters. |