Selahattin K. was arrested by the German federal police upon his arrival at Frankfurt Airport. The Turkish citizen is said to have held managerial positions for the PKK in west Germany.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
The detention warrant issued for Selahattin K. by the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice, the highest court of civil and criminal jurisdiction in Germany, is reported to date from mid-February. Selahattin K. was arrested in Italy in mid-June based on a European arrest warrant.
Between January 2014 and July 2015, Selahattin K. is said to have worked as a full-time PKK executive in Germany.
He performed the typical managerial duties of a so-called area leader, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office said.
These primarily included coordinating the PKK’s organizational, personnel and propaganda activities in various areas.
Selahattin K. gave instructions to the area managers as well as groups and activists who were under his command and monitored their implementation. In doing so, he himself had to follow the instructions of the so-called European leadership of the PKK.
The German Federal Prosecutor’s Office accuses him of membership in a foreign terrorist organization.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 for the creation of an independent state in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey, but it later scaled back its demands to greater Kurdish autonomy.
The conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed group, was captured by Turkish security forces in Nairobi in 1999 and has been jailed on Imrali Island in the Sea of Marmara since then.