Istanbul: Turkey’s justice minister said on Wednesday two hostage takers who seized an Istanbul prosecutor had “held a gun to the nation” and vowed to hunt down the “dark forces” responsible, after all three were killed in a police rescue attempt.
Two members of the extreme leftist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) took prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz, 46, hostage in his office in Istanbul on Tuesday.
Kiraz had been leading an investigation into the death last March of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, who died nine months after falling into a coma from a head wound sustained from a police tear gas canister during anti-government protests in 2013.
The hostage-taking was an act of revenge for Elvan’s death, the DHKP-C said on its website.
“We don’t see this as an attack on our deceased prosecutor, but on the whole justice system. It is a gun directed at our nation,” Justice Minister Kenan Ipek told mourners at a ceremony attended by hundreds of lawyers and judges.
“Our state is powerful enough to track down those behind these lowlifes ... The fact these assassins are dead shouldn’t put those nefarious and dark forces at ease,” he said, as Kiraz’s coffin, draped with the red Turkish flag, stood on display in the courthouse foyer.
Separately, a gunman was detained by armed police on Wednesday after entering an office of the ruling AK Party in another Istanbul suburb and hanging a Turkish flag with the emblem of a sword added to it from a top-floor window.
DHKP-C sympathisers clashed with police in two Istanbul neighbourhoods overnight, local media reported.
A leftist union website meanwhile said riot police detained 36 students at Istanbul University after posters referring to one of the dead hostage takers was hung in the law faculty.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned late on Tuesday of the risk of increased violence ahead of a June general election, urging all parties to “form a united front against terrorism”.
On his Twitter account, Deputy Prime Minister Emrullah Isler accused the hostage-takers of links to groups which incited violence during the 2013 unrest in which Elvan was injured.
President Tayyip Erdogan has in the past described the teenager as a “terrorists’ pawn.” The DHKP-C is a Marxist group formed in the late 1970s that has been behind a series of assassinations and suicide bombings, including fatal attacks on the US Embassy. The Turkish police have also been a frequent target.
Authorities on Wednesday rounded up two dozen suspected members of DHKP-C.
Late on Tuesday, police launched an operation to free Kiraz after an hours-long standoff with his captors but the official, who had sustained gunshot wounds, died shortly after arriving at hospital.
It was not clear from where the shots that killed him were fired.
Both his captors, two men in their 20s, were killed in the police operation.
Turkish authorities on Wednesday detained 22 suspected members of the group in the southern city of Antalya after receiving a tip-off they were planning further attacks, the Dogan news agency reported.
A lawyer for the suspects told Dogan that the claims were baseless and the group was going to release a statement later in the day.
The DHKP-C is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the US, and has carried out a string of attacks in Turkey in the past.
A ceremony to remember Kiraz took place at the Istanbul Caglayan Palace of Justice where he worked and the hostage drama unfolded.
Hundreds of lawyers, prosecutors and staff stood in respect on every floor of the giant building — said to be the largest courthouse in Europe — and unfurled a giant Turkish flag from the top floor.
“We will not forget you, our martyr,” read a gigantic banner.
He was later buried in a funeral at the Eyup Sultan Mosque in Istanbul, attended by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the official Anatolia news agency said.
“The day we went into darkness,” said the daily Cumhuriyet after a day which also saw Turkey’s worst nationwide power cut in 15 years.
The Hurriyet daily called it “Black Tuesday.”
Kiraz had been leading a hotly-politicised investigation into the killing of teenager Berkin Elvan, who died in March last year after spending 269 days in a coma from injuries inflicted by police in antigovernment protests in the summer of 2013.
So far no one has been brought to trial for the crime and the captors demanded that Kiraz hand over the names of the suspects and force them to confess.
Publishing photos of the prosecutor with his mouth bound and a gun to his head, they threatened to kill him if their demands were not met.
Davutoglu said it was an “attack against the Turkish judiciary, Turkish democracy and all the citizens in Turkey.”
“No one should doubt that we will continue to fight against terrorism with determination and take whatever steps necessary,” he added.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, arriving on a visit to Romania, said the attackers had entered the courthouse disguised in legal robes.
He said Kiraz had suffered three gunshots to the head and two to his body.
Turkish media reports said the attackers had carried fake lawyers’ ID that allowed them to get around security checks.
Kiraz pressed a panic button after he was seized but the attackers had already locked the doors, the Milliyet daily said.
The circumstances of the police operation were not immediately clear but Istanbul police said it was launched after they heard gunshots coming from the office where he was held.
Energy Minister Taner Yildiz vehemently denied there was any link between the hostage drama and the power cut, after opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu claimed the power could have been cut intentionally to assist the captors.
The drama came at time of intensifying political tensions in Turkey ahead of June 7 legislative elections.
Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is seeking a landslide victory, which would allow it change the constitution to boost the powers of the presidency, which he assumed in 2014 after more than a decade as prime minister.
