Netherlands: border police arrest alleged Turkish terrorist

Spokesman Rene Claessen of the Dutch Royal Marechaussee said the 37-year-old man was identified as the subject of an international arrest warrant during a routine traffic stop near the southern border city of Maastricht on Aug. 1, and his arrest was only now being made public.

The man, whose identity was not released, is suspected of carrying out an attack in which 15 people were killed, including a police officer, Claessen said. He did not say when or where the attack too place.

Also arrested was a 28-year-old man who will be charged with smuggling the main suspect into the Netherlands illegally from Belgium. Both are Turkish nationals, the Marechaussee said.

Claessen could not confirm whether the man was a member of the Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK, a Kurdish separatist group active in Turkey that is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union.

Claessen said the suspect has been arraigned and is being held in a maximum-security prison in the central town of Vught in expectation of an extradition request from Turkish authorities, the AP reports.

In 2004, 39 suspected Kurdish rebels were arrested at a covert training camp uncovered in a rural area of southern Netherlands. Charges of lending support to the PKK were brought against 16 suspects, but none were convicted of major crimes. Most were deported.