10 ISIL suspects arrested over Istanbul bombing

ISTANBUL

AA photo

An Istanbul court arrested 10 people with suspected links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant who killed 10 German tourists blowing himself up in Istanbul’s Sultanahmet Square on Jan. 12 over charges of “being a member of a terrorist organization” and “deliberate murder,” Doğan News Agency has reported.

The prosecutor had demanded the arrests of 16 Syrian suspects and sent them to Istanbul’s Çağlayan Courthouse on Jan. 17 following police questioning. Separate proceedings against a 17th suspect - a minor - were reported to be ongoing.

Meanwhile, the other six suspects were released under judicial control.

The perpetrator of the Sultanahmet bombing was identified as a Syrian citizen born in Saudi Arabia who recently appealed to a district directorate of migration management for asylum in Turkey. The bomber set off the explosion just steps away from Istanbul’s historic Blue Mosque. 

The bomber, identified as 28-year-old Nabil Fadli, applied for asylum at the Zeytinburnu Migration Management Directorate in the Istanbul district on Jan. 5, security sources said.

Gerhard Günther Höppner, Steffen Höppner, Rudolf Krollman, Hiltrud Krollman, Karin Erika Franke-Dütz, Rüdiger Karl Faber, Marianne Faber, Gernot Eike Mildner, Adolf Jurgen Glorius and Rudiger Becker, all German citizens, were killed in Fadli’s attack.

“International terrorism has once again showed itself, with its horrible and inhuman face,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference in Berlin on Jan. 12 following earlier media reports that said Germans were among the victims of the blast.