Ankara - A Turkish court yesterday sentenced 33 Muslim activists to death for their role in an Islamist riot in 1993 in which 37 people were killed, the state-run Anatolian news agency said. The death penalty is one of the top agenda items in relations between Turkey and the EU since the bloc granted the country EU candidate status last December. The 15-nation bloc since then has urged Ankara to abolish capital punishment to meet membership standards. Turkey keeps the death penalty in its statute books but has not executed anyone since the mid-1980s.
