Turkish sociologist Pinar Selek who is known for her researches into children outcast from society and the Kurdish problem, has been acquitted on charges of involvement in an alleged bomb explosion at Istanbul's historic Spice Market in 1998.

The prosecutor was asking for life imprisonment of Selek, but Thursday's hearing at Istanbul's 12th High Criminal Court acquitted her on grounds that it could still not be established whether the deadly blast at the market was result of a bombing or a liquid gas container blowing up.

The case against 15 defendants including Selek was opened in relation to the July 9, 1998 alleged bombing of "Misir Carsisi", causing the death of 7 people and the injury of 127. At the time of the incident Selek was a student of sociology.

On Thursday, 3 defendants related to the case were sentenced to life on charges of "killing persons in the name of an organization" but two of the sentences were reduced to 36 years for good conduct. Charges were dropped for Selek's other -defendants.

Selek's attorney Ergin Cinmen told Bianet after the verdict that they regarded the decision in her instance as being in accord with law. The case was heard from beginning to end by the same panel of justices, he said.

The main discrepancies in expert reports related to the case was the cause of the explosion. In a July 2002 dated expert report the prosecution heard that it was result of a bomb because if there had been an LPG leak, this would have led to a fire. Yet Middle East Technical University's Prof. Dr. Inci Gokmen who was on the panel of experts said she did not agree with the conclusion in the report adding, "the explosion was result of gas".

The prosecution itself has agreed that criminology, expert, forensic and board reports submitted to the court over the past years have contradicted each other but quoted some of the witnesses testifying that they "smelt gunpowder" together with trace evidence found on site as reason to conclude there had been a bomb attack. (EO/II/YE)