TWO men were charged with raising money for terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000 yesterday amid heightened police security at South Lakeland Magistrates Court.

The men, Gultekin Onur, 39, and Soner Koyuncu, 30, both from London, were arrested in Kendal on Saturday night, December 28. Last night both men were charged that on December 27 at Barrow they received £400 in cash knowing or having reason to believe that it would or might be used for the purposes of terrorism. If proved, the charge could carry a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

Both men were remanded in custody until next Thursday, January 9. Making an application to have the defendants bailed, Judith Birbeck said both men were Turkish Kurds and were asylum seekers, with Mr Onur granted asylum in August 2001 and Mr Koyuncu soon expected to be granted leave to remain in Britain indefinitely. Both men, she said, had "every reason to remain in Britain" and had firm ties in London. The men entered no formal plea to the charges but Mrs Birbeck said they "wanted to clear their names."

Magistrates decided that the charges were so serious the case would have to be tried at a Crown Court and refused the application for bail.

After the initial arrest close to Kendal on Saturday, magistrates held a special court session the next day to invoke powers under section 41 of the Terrorism Act allowing police to hold the defendants for longer than usual without charge. That special permission lapsed at 4pm yesterday and the last defendant was charged within half-an-hour of the deadline.

The men have been held at Kendal police station and interviewed with the help of a Turkish speaking interpreter.

The charges against them relate to section 15 of the Terrorism Act, which came into force in February 2000, and deals with raising money for terrorist activities. The two men are believed to have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds from businesses with Kurdish links across the North of England.

The Terrorism Act made it an offence to belong to or support financially organisations proscribed by the Home Secretary as terrorist bodies. Under it, it is an offence for anyone to "invite another to provide money or other property and intends that it should be used, or has reasonable cause to suspect that it may be used, for the purposes of terrorism".

Organisations outlawed under the Act include Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaida network, the Basque separatist group ETA, the Real IRA and the Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK).

The charges against Mr Onur and Mr Koyuncu relate to raising funds for the PKK which has fought a 25-year guerrilla campaign against the Turkish government for the independence of Kurdish-speaking regions of Turkey. The PKK called a ceasefire since 1999 and was officially disbanded in April 2002.

The Kurdish people are an ethnic group whose homeland, Kurdistan, was divided up between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria in a deal between Britain and Turkey following the break-up of the defeated Ottoman Empire after the First World War.

The Kurds of Northern Iraq have been oppressed by Sadaam Hussein's regime in Iraq and the dictator has even used chemical weapons against the Kurdish civilians most infamously against the city of Halabja, in Northern Iraq, in 1988.

There are around 25 million Kurds in all. The majority are Sunni Muslims but there are also other Muslim groups as well and Christians and Jews within the Kurdish population.

There are believed to be up to 60,000 Kurds living in Britain, mostly in North East London.

January 3, 2003 09:00