Turkish Militant Extradited to Germany

A Turkish ultra-leftist radical accused of belonging to a terrorist organization was extradited to Germany from the Netherlands Wednesday, the German federal prosecutor's office said. The office said in a statement that Hasan Huseyin K. would also face charges of extortion by force and grievous bodily harm for his role as a leader of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) in Germany. He was arrested on March 25 in Rotterdam and been held since then in investigative custody. Hasan Huseyin K. is suspected of leading a regional chapter of the DHKP-C -- which is on the terror lists of Turkey, the European Union and the United States -- from early 1996 to mid-1997. He is accused of violently extorting "donations" for the group and beating and shooting two political dissidents in a Hamburg restaurant. The DHKP-C is believed to have orchestrated attacks on Turkish institutions in Germany as well as purported "enemies" of the group until it was banned in August 1998. The following year, the group's general secretary Dursan Karatas said that it would no longer use violence to achieve its political aims. The DHKP-C is accused of masterminding a wave of hunger strikes among left-wing prison inmates and their friends and families in Turkey that has resulted in nearly 70 deaths in four years.