The co-leader of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition party went on trial in Ankara Thursday on charges of links to outlawed Kurdish militants, after over a year behind bars in a case supporters say is politically motivated, his party said.

Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the second largest opposition bloc the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), was detained in November 2016 and is charged with "managing a terror organisation" and "making propaganda for a terror group". His trial got under way at Sincan prison complex in Ankara province, a HDP official told AFP