A Turkish court yesterday began hearing the case of 69 people charged with involvement in al Qaeda-linked suicide bombings in Istanbul but a legal snag over the court's authority meant it was effectively put on hold.

In one of modern Turkey's worst weeks of peacetime violence, four truck bombs killed 61 people and wounded more than 600 in the November attacks directed at two synagogues, the British consulate and the local headquarters of London-based bank HSBC.

Turkey's highest profile trial since the 1999 conviction of Kurdish guerilla leader Abdullah Ocalan ran into a legal dilemma over the status of a court that has technically been abolished under Ankara's EU-inspired political reforms.

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