Casablanca - The man who shot dead Andrey Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Ankara, at an art exhibition on Monday worked for the Ankara riot police since 2014.
Casablanca – The man who shot dead Andrey Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Ankara, at an art exhibition on Monday worked for the Ankara riot police since 2014.
A gunman shot Russia’s ambassador to Turkey at an art exhibition while the official was delivering a speech. The attacker was camouflaged with a black suit that made him appear as the ambassador’s personal bodyguard. He appears in the video shooting the ambassador with several bullets, which also injured three others during the assassination.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, reportedly said the attacker’s name was Mevlut Mert Atlintas. He also revealed that Atlintas worked for Ankara’s riot police for more than two years but was off-duty as he carried out the act.
Mevlut Mert Atlintas, 22 years old, shouted “Allahu Akbar” in Arabic, which translates into ‘God is great’. He then began repeating, in Turkish, “Do not forget Aleppo! Do not forget Syria! Do not forget Aleppo! Do not forget Syria!”
A witness told Voice of America that security was not tight that night, which explains why the metal detectors that were used in the entrance did not detect the attacker’s gun.
According to Turkish authorities, the assailant, who was shouting “Only death will remove me from here,” was killed 15 minutes after his attack, in a gunfight with Turkish Special Forces.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, told Reuters that Russia considers the attack a “terrorist act,” noting that “terrorism will not win and we will fight against it decisively.”
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, stated in a televised comment following the attack that he held a phone conversation with his Turkish counterpart, and that “the investigative committee has already launched an investigation into this killing. It had been tasked with the mission of forming a working group, which will have to fly to Ankara to join its Turkish colleagues in jointly investigating this murder.”
In his turn, the Turkish president said in a tweet: “This attack is a provocation aimed at disrupting our relations. I condemn it vehemently.”
