One arrested over Istanbul bomb attack

ISTANBUL – Doğan News Agency

REUTERS photo

One suspect, who was detained in the southeastern province of Gaziantep over the March 19 Istanbul suicide attack, was arrested on March 23.

An Istanbul court ruled for the arrest of Erkan Çapkın for allegedly having connections to the suicide bomber of the March 19 attack, Mehmet Öztürk.

Meanwhile Öztürk’s two brothers, Gökhan and Yaşar Öztürk, were released under judicial control.

Three Israelis and one Iranian were killed and more than 30 were injured in a suicide bomb attack on March 19 in central Istanbul on the city’s busy İstiklal Avenue.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)-linked Öztürk was identified as the bomber. He had been identified by intelligence services as a “supporter of a terrorist group,” but he was not in the national judiciary informatics system (UYAP), Turkish security and intelligence sources stated.

Sources also said the attacker’s image was in the photo archive of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the security directorate, despite his lack of a criminal record, as the archive includes pictures taken during passport controls. 

As Öztürk had traveled back and forth from Turkey to Syria many times and was determined to be “in contact” with others affiliated with terrorist groups, he was filed as a “supporter of a terrorist group” in security archives.