Reyhanlı bombing suspect arrested after extradition from US

Photo: AA

Click to read the article in Turkish

The suspect who allegedly gave the order for the deadly 2013 Reyhanlı attack that killed 53 civilians was remanded into custody by a court in the capital of Ankara.

Mehmet Gezer was extradited by the US to Turkey and handed over to authorities after he arrived on June 30 at İstanbul Airport.

Gezer was taken to Ankara where a court ordered his arrest on charges of "deliberate killing" and "destroying the unity of the state and the integrity of the country."

In addition to the deaths in the attack near Turkey's border with Syria, the bombing in May 2013 damaged 912 buildings, 891 workplaces, and 148 vehicles.

Yusuf Nazik, 34, confessed to playing a role in the deadly bombing after he was arrested by Turkish intelligence in the Syrian port city of Latakia on Sept. 12, 2018. He also said Gezer played a key role in the bombing.

The Reyhanlı bombing

On May 11, 2013, two bomb-laden vehicles launched an attack in the district of Reyhanlı, Hatay, bordering Syria. The attack claimed the lives of 52 people and wounded 155 others. The 33-defendant main case filed into the attack was concluded on February 23, 2018. The Ankara 9th Heavy Penal Court sentenced each one of nine defendants to life imprisonment aggravated for 53 times and 4 thousand 32 years in prison.

The case files of eight fugitive defendants, including Mihraç Ural, were separated from the others. Nazik was also one of the defendants whose file was separated. It was announced in September 2018 that fugitive defendant Nazik was caught in Latakia in Syria in an operation launched by the National Intelligence Service (MİT) of Turkey.

The final hearing of Nazik was held on May 13, 2019. Nazik has been sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for "disrupting the unity and integrity of the state" and to life imprisonment aggravated for 52 times for "killing 52 people for purposes of terror." That being the case, Nazik has been given a life sentence aggravated for 53 times in total. (SD/VK)