Local AKP politician killed by PKK militants in house raid in Van

VAN

A local ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) politician was killed by a group of outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the Özalp district of the eastern province of Van on Oct. 9. 

Aydın Muştu, the AKP’s Özalp district deputy head, was shot dead after he resisted the group’s attempt to seize the minibus outside his home, the Van Governor’s Office said in a statement on Oct. 10.    

Work is ongoing to capture the assailants in the attack, the statement added.

Zahir Soğanda, the AKP’s Van provincial head, said Muştu had been working for the party for a long time and was responsible for performing the party’s organizational tasks in Özalp.

Soğanda “vehemently condemned” the attack, recalling that the PKK had carried out another attack that injured 53 people on Sept. 12, the first day of Eid al-Adha holiday, in front of the Van provincial office building.  
 
On Sept. 14 another local AKP politician, Ahmet Budak, was killed in an armed attack in the Şemdinli district of the eastern province of Hakkari.

Budak was shot as he was returning home from a visit to mark the Eid al-Adha holiday with his son when unknown assailants shot him in front of his home.