Turkish police caught Friday a PKK terrorist who was trying to escape to Bulgaria by hiding among Pakistani migrants.

Police in the northwestern province of Edirne were informed that a group of migrants were about to make an illegal crossing to Bulgaria near the Kapıkule border gate.

Special operations police used thermal cameras to locate and follow the migrants, who were about to start their illegal crossing near a way station on the road.

While detaining the migrants, special operations police discovered that one of them was a PKK terrorist named Abdurrahim Demir.

The Edirne Courthouse sentenced Demir to life imprisonment while the Pakistani migrants were transferred to the repatriation department of the Edirne Migration Bureau.

The PKK has targeted security forces and civilians in the region for decades, killing thousands of people since it was established in the early 1980s.

Listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU, the PKK resumed its armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015, unilaterally violating the cease-fire.

Since then, over 600 security personnel, including troops, police officers and village guards, have died in PKK attacks and more than 7,000 terrorists have been killed during operations across Turkey and northern Iraq, according to the military.