Party leader stabbed at headquarters

ANKARA

Innovation Party leader Öztürk Yılmaz has been stabbed and injured at the party’s headquarters in the capital Ankara.

He was stabbed in the leg by an attacker who came to the party’s headquarters in the Çankaya district to meet with him on Dec. 7.

Police caught the attacker, Serhat K., at the intercity bus terminal in the northwestern province of Bolu.

Yılmaz, who is not at risk of death, was taken to the hospital by ambulance.

“Someone came and said, ‘I live in Istanbul’s Küçükçekmece, I like you very much.’ We talked for five minutes. I wanted to offer coffee, he said he would be very pleased,” he said referring to the attacker.

“The moment I turned around, he drew out the knife, trying to hit me in the throat first. He stabbed four times in a row, then escaped.”

“I am not afraid of anyone. These are the men who want to confuse Türkiye,” he added.

Having served as the Turkish embassy secretary to Kyrgyzstan and Brazil, Öztürk was appointed as the consul general of Türkiye to Mosul in 2013.

He was taken hostage in June 2014 and held for 101 days along with 48 other diplomats after ISIL terrorists took over the city. He was released under undisclosed circumstances by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT) on Sept. 20, 2014.

He was elected as a deputy for the electoral district of Ardahan from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the November 2015 general election. In 2018, Yılmaz became an independent, and in 2020, he founded the Innovation Party.