Mr. Ocalan’s arrest on Monday led to furious protests by Kurdish demonstrators, who attacked Greek consulates and embassies across Europe and tried to storm the Israeli Consulate in Berlin on the strength of rumors that Greece and Israel had been involved in his capture. So far, the United States has not been a target of their anger, although the State Department urged Americans traveling overseas to take precautions.
Since October, Mr. Ocalan had been on the run — from Syria to Italy to Russia to Greece. He finally landed in the Greek Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, on Feb. 2.
It was a poor choice of hideouts. More than 100 American intelligence and law-enforcement officers, along with Kenyan security officials, are in Nairobi investigating the terrorist bombing of the American Embassy there in August, which took 213 lives.
Members of that team quickly discovered that Mr. Ocalan had arrived in Nairobi, American officials said. They placed the Greek Embassy under surveillance and monitored his cell phone conversations while he placed calls to political contacts, seeking sanctuary.
Despite American insistence in the last few days that the United States had no ”direct involvement” in the Ocalan case, the surveillance information gave Turkish commandos the chance to capture Mr. Ocalan with the help of Kenyan security officers, the officials said. The Turkish Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, said today that a Turkish commando team flew to Nairobi after receiving a tip from another country, which he would not identify. The commandos captured Mr. Ocalan after he agreed to be driven to the Nairobi airport by a Kenyan security officer working with the Turkish squad.
It was the end of a long journey, one that American diplomatic and intelligence officers monitored closely. From October onward, as Mr. Ocalan sought shelter in Russia, across Europe and in Africa, American diplomats and intelligence officers sought to cut off his escape routes, according to officials here.
They warned their European and Russian counterparts of the consequences of sheltering Mr. Ocalan, saying: ”If you’ve got him, what are you going to do with him?” according to the senior American official, who demanded anonymity.
Mr. Ocalan had spent much of the last 15 years in Damascus, Syria. In October, Turkey stepped up pressure on the Syrian Government to expel him, threatening military action. The United States issued a parallel private demand.
On Oct. 9, Syria put Mr. Ocalan on a plane to Moscow. Israeli intelligence monitored his departure from Damascus, officials said. But the Israeli role in the Ocalan case did not involve trapping him in Nairobi, according to American officials, who would be unlikely to reveal such a role if it existed. Israel has taken pains to deny having any part in his capture, including a rare statement from its foreign intelligence service, the Mossad.
On Nov. 2, after a month seeking a political base in Europe, Mr. Ocalan flew from Moscow to Rome and into the hands of the Italian authorities, who held him on a German warrant charging him with terrorism.
”We spent a good deal of time working with Italy and Germany and Turkey to find a creative way to bring him to justice,” the senior Administration official said.
But none was found. Germany dropped the charge, fearing the kinds of protests and riots that have erupted since his arrest. Italy was loath to turn Mr. Ocalan over to Turkey, where he could face a death sentence for treason.
Mr. Ocalan left Italy secretly on Jan. 16, flying to St. Petersburg, then seeking a way back into another European country, officials said. He found one on Jan. 30, when he flew to Athens in a private plane obtained by Andonis Naxakis, a retired military officer who, like many of his countrymen, sympathizes with the Kurdish cause, according to Greek officials.
Two days later, on Feb. 1, Greek officials, uneasy with the fugitive on their hands, told him to try flying to the Netherlands, where he could seek a hearing at the International Court of Justice. The Dutch authorities barred his plane, so Mr. Ocalan returned to Greece. The next day, he flew with a Greek official and four aides to Nairobi, where the Greek Government had agreed to shelter him temporarily at its embassy.
The American and Kenyan intelligence and law-enforcement team in Nairobi quickly detected Mr. Ocalan’s presence and reported it to Turkey, United States officials said.
After two tense weeks in the Greek Embassy, Mr. Ocalan was told he could fly to Amsterdam. He got into a jeep driven by a Kenyan security officer, supposedly bound for the airport.
”When he got into the car on his own, he looked worried,” his interpreter, Nucan Derya, told the Reuters news agency today. ”I think he understood that there was something dangerous going on.”
His instincts were good: the Kenyan driver delivered him into the arms of the Turkish commando team. He is now being held for interrogation and trial on a Turkish island in the Sea of Marmara.
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A version of this article appears in print on February 20, 1999, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: U.S. Helped Turkey Find and Capture Kurd Rebel.
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