Suspect of İstiklal Avenue bombing killed in Qamishli

Photo: AA

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Halil Menci, who was sought, to be charged with planning and organizing the İstiklal Avenue bombing in Beyoğlu, İstanbul, was killed in Syria.

Six people were killed in the bombing on İstiklal Avenue on November 13, 2022, and 81 people were injured.

The state run Anadolu Agency reported that the location was determined for Menci "who led Ahlam Albashir and Bilal Hassan and ensured that Bilal Hassan escaped abroad."

Menci was chased by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and killed in an operation on February 22 in North Syria, AA reported.

Has Bilal Hassan escaped to Bulgaria?

It is believed that the fugitive suspect Bilal Hassan entered Türkiye together with Ahlam Albashir who is now arrested and that they stayed in a textile workshop in İstanbul together for four months, pretending they were married before the bombing.

The Jarkas brothers convicted of human trafficking before are being charged with taking Hassan to the Bulgaria border after the attack. Both are now arrested.

Amran Abdulrami from Syria who is believed to have aided the fugitive suspect Hassan and three other suspects from Moldova were detained in Bulgaria. The Sofia City Court ruled that they should be remanded in custody since they entered the country illegally and on suspicion that they were involved in human smuggling.

In the scope of the investigation in İstanbul, seventeen out of the 49 suspects including Ahlam Albashir whose statements were taken by 29 prosecutors has been arrested on charges of "disrupting the unity of the state and integrity of the country," "wilful murder," "attempting wilful murder," "aiding wilful murder" while 29 suspects were deported. 

(AS/Mİ/PE)