Turkey's constitutional court on Friday outlawed the pro-Islamic Virtue Party for anti-secular activities, but limited the electoral side-effects of the move by letting most of its deputies keep their parliamentary seats.

The party, Turkey's main opposition party and its third biggest political force, was accused of activities that violate the secular status of the mainly Muslim country, and in particular promoting the wearing of headscarves by women.

The court's decision to strip only two of the party's 102 deputies of their parliamentary mandates meant that Turkey would evade much-feared by-elections, which would have become necessary if at least 20 MP's had lost their seats.

The verdict, announced by court president Mustafa Bumin, is expected to relieve the embattled government of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, which feared political instability from new elections at a time when it is implementing vital IMF-backed reforms to save the economy from a bottleneck.

The Virtue Party was charged with inciting protests against a headscarf ban in universities and orchestrating a failed bid by one of its legislators in 1999 to take an oath in parliament wearing a headscarf.

That move was seen as a symbolic challenge to Turkey's strictly secular order, which is firmly upheld by the country's powerful army which sees radical Islam as one of the main threats to stability.

The verdict made Virtue the fourth pro-Islamic party to be banned in Turkey, where the secularist elite, led by the military, has constantly clamped down on political Islam on fears that it could drag the country from its pro-Western path.

The court also banned five party members, including the two ousted MPs – Nazli Ilicak and Bekir Sobaci – from politics for five years for acts and remarks, which had prompted the ban.

In addition, the court ordered the confiscation of all party assets and their handover to the treasury.

However, it rejected another prosecution charge – that Virtue was an illegal continuation of the Welfare Party, which was banned in 1998.

Welfare leader Necmettin Erbakan, the mentor of political Islam in Turkey and its first Islamist prime minister, was banned from politics at the time.

Several months before the ban, a military-led campaign forced Erbakan to step down after just a year in power as pro-Islamic government rhetoric and practices, unprecedented by then at higher state echelons, sparked fears that Turkey's secular order and its West-oriented path were in danger.AFP