Suicide attack suspects planned attack on Turkish capital Ankara: Police

AYDIN – Doğan News Agency

AA Photo

Two suspected suicide attackers, including a suspect in the killing of leading industrialist Özdemir Sabancı in 1996, were planning a terrorist attack in the Turkish capital of Ankara, according to a police statement. 

İsmail Akkol and Fadik Adıyaman, suspected members of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), were detained in the Söke district of the western province of Aydın at a bus terminal on Feb. 2. Both guns and a grenade were seized amongst their belongings. 

The Aydın governor’s office said a rocket launcher, one grenade, one pistol, one “assassination gun,” magazines, 91 bullets and other ammunition were found.

Police said the suspects arrived in Söke from the touristic destination of Didim. 

Söke police realized the duo possessed fake IDs of “Hatice Çalışkan” and “Zeynel Abidin Gümüş,” in order to disguise their own identities while travelling from Söke to Eskişehir before reaching Ankara. 

The police also found out the IDs were illegally duplicated, and that the two real ID holders had no ties to the organization. Çalışkan and Gümüş were released after an interrogation by an attorney general. 

Police officials said Akkol would undergo a DNA test to confirm his identity, as no record of his fingerprints was ever found. 

Akkol’s and Adıyaman’s lawyer, Oya Aslan, said her clients were tortured during their detainment. 

The lawyer said the suspects chanted that they would bring to account those responsible for the killings of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan and Dilek Doğan. 

Two DHKP-C militants raided an Istanbul court house on March 31 while taking prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz hostage, before killing him hours later. The militants were also killed in the same police operation to rescue Kiraz. 

Berkin Elvan was the youngest victim of the Gezi Park protests in the summer of 2013; he died in a coma 269 days after being hit with a tear gas canister. 

Dilek Doğan was shot by a policeman during a search of her house in an anti-terror operation against the DHKP-C in Istanbul. 

Hürriyet reported Jan. 31 that Akkol, who has been on the run for 20 years, entered Turkey for an attack. The police were also after him for the killing of two gendarmeries in Istanbul in 1995. 

Greek police had detained four suspects, including DHKP-C senior Hüseyin Fevzi Tekin and Akkol, on Feb. 10, 2014, during an operation in Athens’ Gizi neighborhood. 

According to Greek media reports, Akkol confessed in his interrogation that the weapons found in their house were bought to be used in attacks in Turkey. Akkol was later released by a local court, although Turkish authorities had demanded his extradition for his involvement in the murder of Sabancı. 

Sabancı, his secretary Nilgün Hasefe, and Toyota SA General Manager Haluk Görgün were killed in an armed attack at the headquarters of Sabancı Holding in 1996.