Nightclub killer confesses
Gunman caught by police admits to killing 39 in Istanbul
ISTANBUL // An Uzbek man, 34, yesterday confessed to slaughtering 39 people at an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Eve. Abdulgadir Masharipov was captured in a police raid after 17 days on the run. Three women and an Iraqi man were also arrested in the operation involving 2,000 police officers in Istanbul.
“The terrorist confessed his crime,” Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin said. He said fingerprints retrieved by forensics teams matched those of the attacker.
The governor said Masharipov was trained in Afghanistan, spoke four languages and was believed to have first entered Turkey illegally through its eastern border in January last year.
“He is a well-trained terrorist,” Mr Sahin said.
Masharipov’s wife and daughter were detained in Istanbul on January 12. He is thought to have been with his four-year-old son at the time of his arrest.
Police confiscated €185,000, two firearms and clips in the raid on an apartment.
The arrest was a relief to Istanbul residents who were already on edge after several attacks in the city and who had feared for more than two weeks that a trained killer was on the loose.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the arrest and congratulated the security forces.
“From now on in this country, nobody will get away with what they have done,” he said. “Everyone will be brought to account within the rule of law.”
After the attack on the Reina nightclub, which was claimed by ISIL, Masharipov apparently slipped into the night. Security at the border was tightened but he did not leave Turkey. He was hiding in the working- class, densely populated western districts of Istanbul.
The police eventually traced him to an apartment in the residential Esenyurt district. One of the three women detained with him was an Egyptian citizen, and the other two were from African states.
Neighbours were shocked to find they had been living next to the most wanted man in Turkey.
“It is like a nightmare. This man was living under the same roof and we didn’t know it,” said Sezen Aras.
Ali Haydar Demir heard a commotion about midnight in his apartment block on 911 Street in Esenyurt. “I heard a noise and went out – I thought someone was stuck in the lift. Then I saw police in the corridor and they told me to go inside,” he said.
Mr Demir had stumbled on the final preparations in the operation to capture Masharipov, who was living on the same floor.
There had been confusion over the attacker’s identity, with reports initially suggesting a Kyrgyz national and then a Uighur from China was responsible.
But authorities later identified him as an Uzbek who was part of a Central Asian ISIL cell who used the code name Ebu Muhammed Horasani.
Police released images taken from a video he filmed with a selfie stick in Istanbul’s Taksim Square before the attack.
They are thought to have identified his location three days before the arrest, but delayed the raid so they could track his movements and his contacts.
Fifty people have been detained in the investigation as a result of raids on 152 locations.
Of the 39 killed in the Reina nightclub, 27 were foreigners. They included citizens from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iraq and Morocco.
Although ISIL had been blamed for previous attacks, including the triple suicide bombings at Istanbul airport last June, this was the first time it openly admitted a major attack in Turkey.
It said it was in retaliation for Turkish military operations in northern Syria.
Capturing the attacker alive is a major victory for the Turkish security forces as he may be able to shed light on other ISIL cells in the city.