At a military Court in Istanbul on Monday, the prosecution asked for the death penalty for 13 people, four of them girls, accused of taking part in the kidnapping and murder of the Israeli Consul-General to Istanbul last May.

They were among 26 people who appeared before the Martial Law Court, all said to be members of the extreme left-wing "turkish People's Liberation Army", which claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of the diplomat, Mr. Ephraim Elrom, on May 17.

He was later found dead in an apartment near the Israeli Consulate-General, shot three times in the head.

The indictment said Mr. Elrom had been personally shot by one of the accused, Mahir Cayan, aged 25, chosen as executioner by toss of the coin among the kidnappers.

Shortly, after Mr. Elrom's murder, Cyan and a second man held the 14-year-old daughter of an army officer hostage in her home, and withstood a 50-hour siege by Security forces until police rushed the apartment and released the girl, Cayan was wounded in the ensuing gun-battle and the other man killed.