A MAN accused of killing a Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) member in the Turkish coastal city of Izmir today is alleged to have received military training in Syria.
Onur Gencer, who was arrested by police after the attack, claimed to have been acting independently and denied having links to any political party .
“I am not affiliated with any group. I entered the building because I hate the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] and fired at random,” he said in a statement.
Photographs on his social media account appear to show him giving the salute of the Grey Wolves, a fascist organisation linked to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
Investigations by the Mesopotamia news agency uncovered pictures of him posing in military uniform in various Syrian cities including Manbij, where Turkish forces and allied jihadists have been fighting Kurds.
It is known that many of the Islamist fighters have been armed and trained by SADAT Defence Consulting Construction Industry and Trade, whose founder Adnan Tanriverdi has served as an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
HDP MP Murat Cepni confirmed the identity of the woman shot dead after being held hostage as Deniz Poyraz.
He accused the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its MHP coalition partner of being the “instigators and abettors” of the killing by creating an environment that encourages attacks on the HDP.
In a statement, the HDP said that the party had been targeted by the AKP and the Ministry of the Interior for months, with the government organising deliberately provocative protests outside its provincial offices.
Crowds gathered at the offices after hearing of Ms Poyraz’s killing, with anger directed at the government.
Her mother Femihe Poyraz said that authorities had prevented her from seeing the body, which was taken to Izmir’s Forensic Medical Department.
“They don’t allow me to see my daughter. They killed her. She’s gone, but thousands will be coming,” she said.
The attack took place on the fourth day of hearings in the so-called Kobani case, the biggest political trial in modern Turkish history.
Some 108 leading HDP figures, including former co-chairs Figen Yuksekdag and Selahattin Demirtas, face life imprisonment on trumped-up charges in a bid to close down Turkey’s main opposition party.
They have been indicted on 37 counts of murder, being blamed for calling street protests against government inaction when Islamic State jihadists were besieging the largely Kurdish city in northern Syria in 2014.
Government forces and paramilitaries led a brutal crackdown on the demonstrations, killing at least 54 people and injuring and arresting many more.
An application to the Constitutional Court to shut down the HDP was rejected earlier this year but has now been resubmitted.
Source: Morning Star
