A TURKISH court sentenced 14 Kurdish civilians to a total of 50 years in prison on Saturday on trumped-up terror charges.

Those convicted are thought to have been subjected to brutal police torture after their arrest in Urfa province in May 2019.

Investigations into the allegations are ongoing, but the judge accepted confessions likely extracted through coercion and sentenced the accused to prison.

The 14 were arrested after Turkish security forces fought with two guerilla fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Halfeti, in the largely Kurdish south-east of the country.

At least 51 Kurdish civilians were hauled in during mass operations later that day, accused of helping the PKK fighters by giving them food and water.

But photographs of those arrested, including children as young as 13, provoked outrage as they were seen lying face down with their hands tied behind their backs.

Shocking allegations of rape, waterboarding and electrocution by Turkish police were heard in courtrooms soon afterwards, but requests for detainees to be examined by forensics were denied.

One of those held, Ruken Deniz, gave a harrowing account of her treatment in police custody soon after her release.

“They electrocuted me in the police station,” she said. “They smashed my head on the ground. I can’t feel my hands and feet. My ribs hurt. I was tortured for several days. I was raped and sexually assaulted.”

Another detainee, Mehmet Ciftci, said he was tortured and beaten on the soles of his feet before being waterboarded.

“These things happened to me at the gendarmerie station,” he said. “They electrocuted me in the genitals while I was blindfolded in the police station. They stamped on me again.”

Legal teams said that many of their clients were unrecognisable after the alleged police beatings.

The Association of Lawyers for Freedom branded the assaults a “collective punishment against the Kurdish people.”