Istabul Archives

Turkey Coup not over yet 18,00 Police Troops Summoned in Istanbul, Ordered to Down Helicopters

July 17, 2016 by administrator

Emergency measures have been taken in Turkey’s Istanbul, as 1,800 additional police troops were deployed in the city and ordered to shoot down helicopters without prior warning, local media reported on Monday, citing a police source.

Special operation troops are deployed in strategic locations of the city while military hardware is arriving to the city, Anadolu agency said. The emergency provisions are underway in response to at least three helicopters flying over Istanbul that have been hijacked away from the Erdogan government.

As Sputnik News reported earlier, there are at least 42 helicopters that have gone missing in the aftermath of the coup which left many to expect that a second attempt at an overthrow of the Erdogan government was imminent. The Erdogan government has responded by dispatching F-16s to command the airspace and assembling 2000 police officers who are ordered to shoot down the renegade helicopters without warning.

BREAKING: Turkey Scrambles F-16's To Find 'Rogue Helicopters.' (@SputnikInt)

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 18, 2016

In the aftermath of the coup, authorities have rounded up 6000 people and the Turkish foreign ministry has issued statements reassuring that the government is back in complete control. The foreign ministry has raised the death toll to more than 290, including over 100 rebels, and says over 2,000 people were injured.

Many on social media are now wondering whether there is another coup attempt afoot as President Erdogan has flown out of Istanbul back to Ankara.

Terrorist State of Turkey: Dozens arrested in Istanbul May Day clampdown

May 1, 2016 by administrator

Unauthorized May Day rallies were met with tear gas and water cannons from police in Istanbul. Clamping down across the city, authorities blocked access to the city’s central Taksim Square, well-known for protests.

An authorized gathering of hundreds of labor and union activists on the outskirts of the city near the airport was allowed to take place on Sunday, but May Day demonstrations of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and protesters trying to break through barriers to Taksim Square were repelled by police. Of the later group, state-run news agency Anatolia said 36 had been arrested.

Anatolia also reported that police had detained four suspected “Islamic State” (IS) militants for allegedly planning a May Day attack in Turkey’s capital of Ankara.

In a separate incident, a man was killed when a police water cannon vehicle while trying to cross the street near Taksim Square. Officials announced that they had opened an investigation into the death of the 57-year-old.

The governor of Istanbul announced that 24,500 members of Turkish security forces would be working on Sunday “to provide for the security of citizens.” May Day, traditionally celebrated as an International Labor Day, comes at a particularly tense time for Turkey this year after a series of violent terrorist attacks across the nation.

Earlier on Sunday, two police officers were killed and 22 others wounded after a car bomb exploded in the city of Gaziantep, not far from the frontier with Syria.

es/rc (AFP, Reuters)

Istanbul: Indictment against state officials in Dink murder case finally accepted

December 9, 2015 by administrator

An indictment against public officials charged with misconduct and negligence in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007 has finally been accepted by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, after its second rejection last month.

The İstanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office returned the indictment two times to public prosecutor Gökalp Kökçü, who is overseeing the investigation, for allegedly including the names of pro-government police officers as suspects and demanding a prison sentence of up to 25 years for Police Chief Engin Dinç, one of the suspects.

Dinç, currently the head of the National Police Department’s intelligence unit, led the Trabzon Police Department’s intelligence unit at the time of Dink’s murder in 2007.

After its approval, the indictment was sent to the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court, which hears terror cases. The prosecutor, however, requested the trial be merged with the main Dink murder trial, held at the İstanbul 5th High Criminal Court.

The court has 15 days to either accept or reject the indictment.

The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office returned Kökçü’s first indictment on Oct. 19, on the grounds that the indictment was “deficient.” After changing the indictment, Kökçü sent a new version of the 150-page document to the prosecutor’s office on Oct. 21.

In the altered indictment, Kökçü requested that the investigation be merged with the trial of those accused of Dink’s assassination. In this trial Ogün Samast, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel stand accused.

On Nov. 2, the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office returned the altered indictment to Kökçü, again, on the grounds that the indictment was still “deficient.” It has been claimed that the prosecutor’s office returned the indictment because it included Dinç, who is known to be close to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), among other state officials who are suspected of being negligent and engaging in misconduct regarding the Dink murder.

According to the claims, the prosecutor’s office allegedly asked Kökçü to remove some names from the list of suspects. There were 25 state officials among the suspects in the investigation. Among those were Dinç, former İstanbul Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah, former İstanbul Police Department Intelligence Unit Chief Ahmet İlhan Güler, the former head of the National Police Department’s intelligence unit Ramazan Akyürek and former İstanbul Police Department Intelligence Bureau Chief Ali Fuat Yılmazer. Those suspects face charges of “forming an organization to commit crime” and “voluntary manslaughter.”

Media reports revealed that Dinç testified to the İstanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office secretly in September and that the Trabzon Police Department’s intelligence unit received intelligence on a probable assassination of Dink in Trabzon, which was sent to İstanbul police in a letter on Feb. 17, 2006. “I also phoned the chief of the intelligence unit of the İstanbul Police Department about the information,” Dinç said in his testimony.

However, during the trial in December 2014, Cerrah and Güler stated in their testimonies that they had not received any intelligence about Dink’s assassination before the murder took place in 2007.

Dink was shot and killed in 2007 by Samast, an ultranationalist teenager. Later, Samast and 18 others were brought to trial. Hayal was sentenced to life in prison for inciting Samast to commit murder.

The retrial began in September 2014, when the İstanbul 5th High Criminal Court complied with a ruling from the Supreme Court of Appeals from May 2013, which overturned a lower court’s ruling that acquitted the suspects in the Dink murder case of charges of forming a terrorist organization. This decision paved the way for the trial of public officials on charges of voluntary manslaughter.

Source: Zaman

Turkey: Azerbaijani man arrested for kidnapping two Ukrainians in Istanbul

September 22, 2015 by administrator

ISTANBUL – Doğan News Agency

An Azerbaijani man has been arrested after he kidnapped and held for ransom two Ukrainians vacationing in Istanbul.

The perpetrator, identified as Enver S., 46, was arrested in Istanbul on Sept. 21 after relatives of the two Ukrainians, identified as Roman O., 23, and W.B., 45, informed the Consulate General of Ukraine in Istanbul, which later notified the Istanbul Police Department that the two Ukrainians had been kidnapped for a $150,000 ransom.

After launching an investigation into the kidnapping, police officers plotted a set up and asked the Ukrainians’ relatives to meet the perpetrator in the hotel’s lobby to hand over the ransom.

Enver S. was arrested outside the hotel where the relatives of the kidnapped tourists were staying as he attempted to get into their car, which had been offered as a down payment for the ransom.

The police officers then asked the Azerbaijani perpetrator to tell them where he was hiding the two Ukrainians.

Roman O. and W.B. were freed after the police officers raided the locked room where they had been held.

The police officers also seized an automatic-action rifle, a large amount of ammunition, several fake passports and 9,600 Turkish Liras found in the room.

Enver S. was sent to prison after official procedures were completed in the police station.

Turkey: Istanbul police, protesters clash in flashpoint district: AFP

July 26, 2015 by administrator

ISTANBUL (AFP) –

© AFP | Protesters protect themselves as Turkish riot police fire water cannon to disperse a demonstration in Istanbul's Gazi district on July 26, 2015

Turkish protesters battled security forces on Sunday in intense clashes in a flashpoint Istanbul district where a leftist activist was killed during police raids earlier this week, an AFP photographer said.

Protesters hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at the police who responded with water cannon, plastic bullets and tear gas.

Some protesters then fortified their positions by erecting barricades in the middle of the street, the photographer said.

The situation was so tense that police were no longer patrolling the area on foot, instead keeping inside their armoured vehicles.

Protesters wrapped handkerchiefs around their noses and mouths to protect themselves from the tear gas, while others wore gas masks. Some took to roofs to throw Molotov cocktails onto the police from above.

Some tried to use a giant umbrella advertising a well known ice cream brand to protect themselves from the water cannon. But the force of the spray destroyed the umbrella, knocking protesters over.

The district, which lies well north of the city centre of Istanbul, has been tense since the killing of Gunay Ozarslan on Friday during nationwide police raids against suspected militants.

The raids were part of a nationwide crackdown on suspected militants as Turkish armed forces pounded targets of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria and Kurdish militants in northern Iraq.

The Gazi district is known as a stronghold of Turkey’s Alevi community, who adhere to an offshoot of Shia Islam.

Strong supporters of secular principles, many are bitter opponents of the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The area has been the scene of intense clashes since Friday but Sunday’s rioting was some of the most serious seen so far as leftist groups from across the city joined in.

The clashes were sparked when the police moved in after activists refused to hand over the body of Ozarslan to the municipal authorities for burial.

Instead, the corpse is being kept in a local cemevi, an Alevi place of worship which the police tried to raid earlier.

The area was hit by several days of sustained rioting in 1995 that left some 20 people dead and was sparked by a gun attack on several cafes.