The former German leader of the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) was sentenced Friday to three years and nine months in prison on criminal charges, according to dpa. The Dusseldorf court found the man, identified as Huseyin A., guilty of being the ringleader of a criminal association. Operating under the code name Colak ('one-armed'), the 48-year-old had run the secretive Marxist group on German soil for just under a year, until April 2008. He had frequently sent commands by mobile phone text message, the court heard, using code words describing demonstrations as 'weddings', the police as 'uncles', or money as 'sheep'. Chief Judge Lutz Braunoehler said he had no doubt that the PKK "continues to systematically commit criminal offences," in Germany.
