Turkish prosecutor faces armed attack in Istanbul

Toygun Atilla – ISTANBUL

DHA Photo

A Turkish prosecutor assigned to terror cases escaped unharmed late on Dec. 7 after unknown assailants fired on his car in Istanbul’s Sultangazi district.

Evliya Çalışkan, who is employed at the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office’s Terror and Organized Crime Bureau, left a courthouse at around 8:30 p.m. and was attacked alongside bodyguards at around 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 7. Four bullets hit the car and blew out the tires. 

The assailants reportedly set an ambush before firing on the car. The prosecutor and the guard police were not harmed in the attack.

An operation was launched to apprehend the militants involved in the attack. 

On Dec. 6, Çalışkan referred several outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) suspects to court with a demand for their arrest, leading police to believe that the assailants were from the DHKP-C.

Çalışkan has also been assigned to cases against the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), which is widely believed to have been behind the July 15 failed coup attempt. He is also a hearing prosecutor in the cases into the former editor-in-chief of daily Cumhuriyet, Can Dündar, and Cumhuriyet’s Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gül.

Dündar and Gül faced trial for “leaking state secrets” due to stories they published about Turkish intelligence trucks allegedly bound for Syria with hidden weapons in early 2014.

They were arrested on Nov. 26, 2015, and released on Feb. 26 following a Constitutional Court decision. An Istanbul court later sentenced Dündar and Gül to five years in prison for “leaking state secrets” on May 6. 

Dündar is currently in Europe, although his wife, Dilek Dündar, was prevented from going to meet him at the beginning of September after Turkish authorities canceled her passport.