"These groups within the state have always existed," said a spokesperson for Istanbul's Free Expression Initiative, Sanar Yurdatapan, "but they've never been charged before. They were protected."

The charges brought against the suspects are not yet known. The investigation is being carried out under the terms of a law restricting media coverage.

"This could be a big development," continued Yurdatapan, suggesting that because figures very high in the military establishment have been connected with such groups it remains to be seen whether the cases will be brought to trial. "We are afraid to have hope."

"I am very glad and honoured. I am very pleased," the Turkish writer told Sweden's Svenska Dagbladet newspaper when asked how he felt about winning the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.36 million) prize. "I will try to recover from this shock."

The Swedish Academy declared Pamuk the winner on a day when, to Turkey's fury, the French lower house of parliament approved a bill making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide. In a what was seen as a test case for freedom of speech in Turkey, Pamuk was tried for insulting "Turkishness" after telling a Swiss paper last year that 1 million Armenians had died in Turkey during World War One and 30,000 Kurds had perished in recent decades. Though the court dismissed the charges on a technicality, other writers and journalists are still being prosecuted under the article and can face a jail sentence of up to three years.

"With all due respect to Orhan Pamuk, whose books I read and like, I believe his comments on the Armenian genocide have been influential in his winning this prize," said Suat Kiniklioglu, an Ankara-based political analyst. "There is a political dimension to all this. I do not believe he was chosen purely on the basis of his artistic capacity," Kiniklioglu said. Pamuk, 54, shot to fame with novels that explore Turkey's complex identity through its rich imperial past.

But his criticism of modern Turkey's failure to confront darker episodes of that past has turned him more recently into a symbol of free thought both for the literary world and for the European Union, which Ankara wants to join. "What I said is not an insult, it is the truth. But what if it is wrong? Right or wrong, do people not have the right to express their ideas peacefully?" Pamuk asked during the trial. EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn celebrated Pamuk's award as a triumph for free speech. "Today's Nobel Prize is good news for world literature, but also good news for artistic freedom and for freedom of expression," he said in a statement.

Pamuk, 53, was put in the dock last month in Istanbul amid ugly scenes, charged with a criminal offence and facing a potential three years in jail for saying to a Swiss magazine that 30,000 people had died in the conflict between Kurdish nationalists and Turkish security forces, and that a million Armenians had died in Turkey during the first world war - "and nobody but me dares to talk about it".

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The justice minister, Cemil Cicek, yesterday disavowed responsibility for the case and a municipal court in Istanbul dropped the charges, according to CNN Turk television last night. The EU had said the case raised concerns over freedom of speech in Turkey as it seeks to win EU membership by demonstrating its commitment to European values.

A game of pass the parcel followed when the judge in the case adjourned the trial in December and ruled that the justice ministry had to decide on whether it should proceed. Mr Cicek yesterday passed the problem back to the court which promptly said there was no case to answer, according to CNN Turk.

While Pamuk supporters were pleased his ordeal was over, anti-censorship lobbyists noted that scores of others - writers, publishers, and academics - still face trial for "denigrating Turkishness" or for publishing books deemed to be offensive to Turkey's official self-image. The writer was charged under a catch-all article in the penal code which criminalises any belittling of "Turkishness" and also outlaws "insulting" all of the major offices of state as well as the military and parliament.

The charge that he had insulted Turkey's armed forces was dropped, but he still faces the charge that he insulted "Turkishness", lawyers said.

His trial was halted on its first day, when an Istanbul judge said the case needed the justice ministry's approval. Brussels has described the case as a litmus test of Turkey's European Union membership credentials. It has called on Ankara, which has just started negotiations over EU membership, to do more to protect freedom of expression.

The trial was halted on 16 December and adjourned until 7 February. The justice ministry's permission is being sought because of a dispute over whether Mr Pamuk is to be tried under Turkey's old penal code or a recent, revised version. Mr Pamuk's lawyers have argued that he must be tried under the old code, requiring the justice minister to give a ruling.

The case stems from a magazine interview earlier this year in which Mr. Pamuk said: "One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talk about it." Turkey maintains the deaths of Armenians in conflicts accompanying the collapse of the Ottoman empire in the early 20th Century were not part of a genocidal campaign, arguing that many ethnic Turks were also killed in that period. Turkey also denies its efforts to contain a separatist uprising in its Kurdish community in the 1980s and 1990s can be classed as genocide.

Pamuk is already on trial under article 301 of Turkey's revised penal code for telling a Swiss newspaper no one dared discuss the alleged massacre of a million Armenians 90 years ago and the deaths of 30,000 Kurds in the past two decades.

The issue of freedom of speech has dogged every stage of Turkey's efforts to join the European Union. While the EU agreed to start entry talks with Turkey in October, such court cases are likely to hinder Ankara's progress towards full membership.

Nihat Tuna, of publishers Iletisim Yayinlari, said the prosecutor of an Istanbul court that charged Pamuk for denigrating Turkish identity had begun an investigation under the same article. "This is a preliminary investigation. It does not mean that another case against Pamuk will be launched," Mr Tuna said.

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The 53-year-old author of best-sellers My Name is Red and Snow is seen by many as a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. His novels deal with the clash between past and present and the values of East and West from the point of view of a bourgeois intellectual.

Pamuk, who has said the country persecuted Armenians during World War I, is among 60 Turkish writers and publishers being prosecuted for their views. Should Istanbul's Sisli Court of First Instance find him guilty, Pamuk may be jailed for three years.

European Union Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn yesterday called the trial a "litmus test" of Turkey's commitment to the EU's criteria for membership. Existing laws don't provide sufficient protection for freedom of expression, he said.

"If they really end up putting Pamuk in jail then you might see the EU suspending membership negotiations," said Katinka Barysch of the London-based Center for European Reform, in a telephone interview Dec. 9. "I can't think of anything quite as drastic as locking people up for criticizing the state."

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights has found Turkey in violation of European laws governing freedom of expression 33 times in the first 11 months of the year, up from last year's total of 20.