Death sentence for Turkish Islamists

A Turkish court has sentenced three Islamic militants to death for treason.

The three men, all members of the outlawed Hezbollah group, were found guilty of conspiring to overthrow Turkey's secular system of government.

The court said they were responsible for the death of six people whose bodies were found in the basements of several houses.

Another 27 Hezbollah members were sentenced to jail for their part in the killings.

The verdict came just two days after police discovered three of the bodies in a house in the city of Gaziantep.

Correspondents say the corpses of 68 people believed to have been killed by Hezbollah have been unearthed in basements around Turkey in the last two years.

Treason carries an automatic death penalty in Turkey, but parliament routinely commutes death sentences to life imprisonment.

No one has been legally executed in Turkey since 1984.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service