Alleged mastermind of 2013 Reyhanlı bombings extradited from US
MEMET GEZER, the alleged mastermind of the 2013 bombings in the southern Turkish town of Reyhanlı, has been extradited from the United States where he was incarcerated, Turkish media outlets reported yesterday.
Gezer was captured in 2016 in Montenegro and extradited to the United States where he was jailed on charges of drug and weapon smuggling. Gezer was charged by U.S. authorities with attempting to sell informants working for law enforcement weapons.
Turkish police said in a statement that Gezer was deported to Turkey and arrived in Istanbul yesterday. The statement noted that Yusuf Nazik, who was convicted of orchestrating the Reyhanlı attacks, said in his statements to investigators that he was ordered to carry out the bombings by Gezer.
Gezer was wanted by Turkey on charges of membership in a terrorist organization and “disrupting the state’s integrity” (a terrorism-related crime) while he had an international arrest warrant on charges of trading drugs.
In his first testimony to investigators after his capture in Syria in 2018, Nazik said that he met with Gezer six months before the attack.
According to Nazik’s statements, Gezer, who is also known for his smuggling activities, introduced him to the other perpetrators of the attack and provided the link with the Syrian intelligence service. The connection between Gezer and the prosecutor of the Reyhanlı case at the time, Özcan Şişman, who was later revealed to be a member of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), on the other hand, is still being investigated. Şişman previously said he met with Gezer once. The former prosecutor, imprisoned in another FETÖrelated case, was accused of ignoring the intelligence in the attacks.
Nazik also claimed that “an American who spoke good Turkish and Kurdish” was involved in the preparation of the bombings.
The bombings were the first terrorist attack in the history of the town in Hatay province, which thrived on trade with neighboring Syria before the war erupted there.
An investigation revealed that they were the work of a group of Turkish nationals with ties to al-Mukhaberat, a shadowy intelligence organization of Syria’s Assad regime. Mihraç Ural, a fugitive terrorist with ties to the Assad regime, was among planners of the attacks. In 2018, a Turkish court sentenced nine suspects to multiple aggravated life sentences for their role in the bombings, while Yusuf Nazik, a key suspect in the bombings, was captured in a special operation in Syria’s Latakia and brought to Turkey later in 2018. Nazik was issued 53 instances of aggravated life imprisonment in 2019.
The town, which is home to a sizeable population of Syrian refugees who fled the brutal conflict, had largely recovered from the attacks that damaged 912 houses, 891 businesses and 148 vehicles, while the names of victims were given to parks, schools and streets across Reyhanlı.