One killed in anti-terror operation in Istanbul
ISTANBUL
Anti-terror police raided a house at around 12 a.m. in the neighborhood of Acıbadem as part of the operation, igniting a clash between security forces and the suspects.
Police sources identified the killed suspect as İnanç Özkeskin, a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
According to the agency, police said that Özkeskin was preparing to stage an armed and bomb attack on Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.
Security forces and intelligence units reportedly determined the planned assassination before carrying out the anti-terror operation.
Many police officers and medical teams were sent to the scene of the incident.
Police subsequently cordoned off the area and banned the entries and exits of vehicles and pedestrians.
Crime-scene investigations carried out by police and the chief public prosecutor were concluded by around 5 a.m.
Özkeskin’s body was taken to the Forensic Medicine Institute in Yenibosna for an autopsy with an escort provided by armored police vehicles.
Police took tight security measures in front of the Forensic Medicine Institute, deploying a water cannon to the scene.
An investigation into the incident is continuing.
Özkeskin was previously detained in April 2016 in Istanbul’s Taksim while staging a hunger strike in support of Fadik Adıyaman, a DHKP-C militant caught in 2016 alongside İsmail Akkol, who was one of the suspects in the 1996 assassination of leading Turkish industrialist Özdemir Sabancı.
Özkeskin staged the hunger strike to demand authorities transfer Adıyaman to Istanbul from the prison in which she was incarcerated in the northwestern province of Tekirdağ.