Man beaten for ‘looking like’ Reina attacker

ISTANBUL

A man identified only by the initials as K.M. was subjected to an attempted lynching in Istanbul’s Pendik district after a crowd thought he resembled an alleged Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant who conducted a New Year’s attack on the famous Reina nightclub on Jan. 1, killing 39 and wounding 65 others. 

A massive manhunt is underway to apprehend the person or persons responsible for the attack. 

People in the Kaynarca neighborhood of Pendik realized that K.M., a citizen of Turkmenistan, “looked like” the Reina attacker at around 1 p.m. on Jan. 4. 

K.M. noticed that a crowd had started to follow him and attempted to run away from the group after panicking. He was caught by the crowd and badly beaten.

The crowd then called the police and K.M. was taken to police, who determined that he was not the person who conducted the attack on Reina.

Police, however, determined that K.M.’s visa had expired, resulting in the man being transferred to the Foreigners’ Department for deportation.

Speaking about the incident, assailants told Doğan News Agency that they lynched K.M. because they thought he was the Reina attacker.