Turkey chief prosecutor denies slain prosecutor was hit by ‘10 bullets’

ISTANBUL – Anadolu Agency

AA Photo

Istanbul’s chief public prosecutor denied April 4 media reports that cited a medical examination showing that 10 bullets hit Turkish prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz during a hostage situation on March 31 in which both he and his two captors died.
         
“The forensic report dated April 1, 2015, revealed five bullet entries and three bullet grazes were found in our prosecutor’s body,” said Hadi Salihoğlu, the chief public prosecutor.
         
Earlier, some Turkish media outlets reported that 10 bullets – not five, as reported earlier – entered the prosecutor’s body, leading to suggestions that he was shot by both his captors and the police.

Salihoğlu refuted the news reports, which he said aimed to confuse public opinion.
           
The forensic analysis carried out by the Forensic Medicine Institute in Istanbul said the assailants’ 7.65mm firearm was used in the prosecutor’s murder, Salihoğlu said in a statement released on April 2.

The two perpetrators, Şafak Yayla and Bahtiyar Doğruyol of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), took Kiraz as a hostage on March 31, demanding that the police officers who shot dead 14-year-old Berkin Elvan during the Gezi protests publicly confess to the killing in return for the prosecutor’s life.

Salihoğlu said security forces intervened after gunshots were heard from the room where Kiraz was being held, although questions remain about an explosion that preceded the gunshots, leading to speculation that police initiated an operation while negotiations were continuing.