COPENHAGEN, Denmark – A Danish court has clear 10 Kurds who were accused of channeling almost $24 million to Turkey’s banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated a terrorist organization by the European Union and the US. The PKK is linked to the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), whose fighters, at the forefront of the defence of the border town of Kobane, are now receiving support from the US-led coalition. The defendants were charged under Danish anti-terror laws for supporting a terrorist organization. Prosecutors had demanded sentences of four years, but all ten men were cleared on Wednesday at the end of a jury trial. They were arrested in September 2012 for allegedly raising 140 million Danish Krone (around $23.7 million) on behalf of the PKK. The Copenhagen City Court accepted their explanation that they had collected the money for cultural activities, and for victims of the earthquake in Van, eastern Turkey in 2011. The case was the largest terrorism funding case in Denmark. The verdict came after Western countries threw their weight behind the PKK-linked Kobane defenders. One defendant, Erbil Kaya, noted after the trial that Denmark itself contributes militarily in Iraq, "where the PKK is part of the struggle against Islamic State." "On one hand we help the PKK with weapons. And on another hand we want to punish Danish Kurds with the accusation that they have collected money for the PKK," Kaya said. Prosecutors are considering an appeal against the acquittal. There has been no official reaction from Turkey, which for 30 years fought the PKK. But Turkey has previously criticized Denmark for not taking its fight against the PKK seriously enough in the case of Roj TV, a Danish based pro-PKK television station, which Turkey wanted closed. Pernille Skipper, a Danish parliamentarian from the Unity List, which wants the PKK’s terrorism designation lifted, said: "If the accused men in this case had not been acquitted for lack of evidence, they might have been jailed for sending money to the same place as the Danish parliament sends weapons."
