Five people have been detained after a suspect in the killing of a Turkish ultranationalist leader was shot dead in Istanbul.
Serdar Oktem, a lawyer, was shot on Monday while driving towards a bridge across the Bosphorus strait in central Istanbul, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said in a statement. He died in hospital.
“Five suspects believed to be connected to the incident were apprehended in an operation conducted by our security forces,” the statement added.
Turkish broadcaster Halk TV showed video of a vehicle which appeared to have five bullet holes in the front left window next to the driver's seat.
Mr Oktem was among more than 20 people on trial in connection with the killing of a Turkish ultranationalist figure nearly three years ago.
Sinan Ates, an academic and former leader of a far-right organisation known as the Idealist Hearths, was shot dead in Ankara in December 2022. The case sparked outrage and speculation over the motives of his killers.
Mr Oktem was released under judicial controls in October 2024 but remained on trial. Prosecutors were seeking a jail sentence for him on a charge of, “aiding and abetting a crime committed in concert with others, by collectively and deliberately planning to murder the victim”, which he denied.
Also known as the Grey Wolves, the Idealist Hearths have ties to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which has 47 seats in Turkey’s parliament and is a main ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.
A former MHP MP for Istanbul, Mr Oktem had also been a vice president of the Grey Wolves, and a lawyer for other defendants in the Ates case, the BBC’s Turkish service reported.
Founded as a youth paramilitary wing of the MHP in the 1960s, Grey Wolves have often been accused of involvement in attacks on left-wing and non-Turkish ethnic minorities in the country. The group, which has been banned in France, describes itself as a “educational and cultural foundation”.
After Mr Oktem’s death on Monday, Mr Ates’s widow, Ayse Ates, reposted video from the scene of the attack. In a post on X, she wrote that the suspects’ safety was paramount in unveiling the perpetrators of the crime because their testimonies could add crucial evidence.
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