Four detained after shootout kills policeman in Turkey’s southeast

SİİRT – Doğan News Agency

DHA photo

Four people have been detained in the investigation into a shootout in the southeastern province of Siirt that led to the death of a police officer. 

A man identified only by the initials T.Ö., 47, and his 24-year-old son M.Ö., who allegedly started the armed conflict from inside the car, were captured in the neighboring province of Batman, while two other men who allegedly helped the two suspects escape were detained in Siirt. 

Thirty-year-old policeman Bünyamin Torğut died after fire was opened from inside a car that was stopped by police over smuggling suspicions. A man inside the car was later captured dead on a road in Siirt.

The authorities had tried to stop a car suspected of being used for smuggling on a road leading to Siirt’s Eruh district when the shootout occurred. 

Torğut was seriously injured and was rushed to hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries. 

A man was later found dead inside the car from which the fire was opened, during the initial findings of the investigation launched into the incident. Gendarmerie forces are now searching for another man who fled the scene. 

The cause of death of the man found inside the car, and whether he was killed in the shootout or by the fugitive, will be determined after an autopsy is conducted, officials stated.

A funeral ceremony was held for Torğut in front of the Siirt Governor’s Office, attended by his wife, father, and 5-year-old son. 

Torğut’s body was then sent to his hometown in Turkey’s eastern province of Elazığ, where it was laid to rest.