PARIS (REUTERS) - Several thousand people demonstrated in Paris on Saturday (Jan 7) to demand justice and a speedier investigation into the 2013 murder of three Kurdish activists.

Sakine Cansiz, a founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the early 1980s, and two other Kurdish women were found dead in the Kurdish Information Centre in Paris in January 2013, all shot at close range.

Some 5,500 people, according to police estimates, marched through central Paris demanding French authorities to find out who was behind the killing of the three women.

"We will continue our protest until justice is done,"Kurdish activist Nursel Kilic told Reuters television.

The trial of the main suspect, 34-year old Turkish national Omer Guney, was due to open on Jan 23. But Guney - who maintained he was innocent - died of a brain tumour last month. He had been placed under formal investigation within about a week of the triple murder.

Judicial sources have said he is thought to have acted under instructions from people in Turkey.

Turkey has denied any involvement in the murders, suggesting instead they were related to internal disputes in the PKK, which has fought a bloody 30-year struggle for Kurdish autonomy from Turkey.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.