Turkish court charges eight in engagement party massacre

Masked gunmen armed with assault rifles attacked the engagement party in the southeastern province of Mardin late on Monday, killing 44 people, including six children and 17 women, and injuring three others. 

Authorities said the court arrested eight suspects following the attack in the village of Bilge in the Mazidagi district. Two other suspects were still being questioned about their alleged involvement in the attack, according to officials.

Some of the suspects and victims were members of state-supported "Village Guard" units, Interior Minister Besir Atalay told reporters following an executive board meeting of ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

He said the guns used in the attack were state-issued, adding the authorities would make the necessary assessments regarding the issue.

A deputy from Pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, submitted Wednesday a motion to parliament requesting an investigation into the "Village Guard" units. Monday's massacre made it compulsory to question these units, Hasip Kaplan said in the motion.

The force, whose number swelled up to 90,000 at the peak of the PKK terror in the 1990s, consists of some 70,000 people today, according to the Turkish Human Rights Association, or IHD.

Authorities have said some suspects were related to the victims. One of the charged was a 14-year old boy, state-run Anatolian Agency reported.

MOTIVE UNCLEAR

The motive for the attack, in which the death toll included the bride, the groom, his parents and four-year-old sister, as well as three pregnant women, still remains unclear.

"There is not only one motive for the attack," Atalay said.

The attack was not just a random act or one carried out in a moment of madness, but was well planned-out and brutal, he earlier told reporters in Ankara a day after visiting the carnage site.

"I spoke to an elderly relative of some of the victims at length who said there was a long-running grudge and jealousy between the two sides," he added.

Anatolian Agency said the attackers had wanted the betrothed woman, Sevgi Celebi, to marry one among their own group of friends or relatives but that her family would not allow it.

The agency quoted villagers as saying there was a dispute between the attacker's family and that of the would-be groom, and that Celebi's family had resisted pressure to cancel the marriage plans.

Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin, however, said the families also were engaged in hostility over some fishing farms near the village, Hurriyet daily reported on its website late Tuesday. 

Hurriyet daily also said Wednesday that a land dispute between the families was at the center of the feud.

The newspaper also quoted a suspect as saying during interrogation that the attackers had intended to kill everybody in the ceremony in order to eliminate the possibility of survivors taking revenge.

"Unless we kill everybody, including women and children, they could try to kill some of us over this blood feud," suspect Abdulkadir Celebi said during questioning.