Armed man takes 12 people hostage in northwestern Turkey
Turkish security officials say an armed man has taken a dozen people hostage at a bank in the country’s northwestern province of Kocaeli, in a standoff that has now reportedly ended.
Kocaeli’s provincial police chief Levent Yarimel said on Saturday that the gunman, who had explosives strapped on, took the people captive in the provincial capital city of Izmit, which is also known as Kocaeli, on Friday.
Later on Friday, security forces stormed the bank, ending the drama that had already lasted for more than six hours.
Yarimel confirmed that “the operation is over,” adding that the armed man was seriously injured in a shootout with police forces.
The top Turkish police official went on to say that all the 12 hostages in the bank were rescued unharmed, and the explosive materials defused.
Yarimel said eight hostages had managed to escape through the windows before the police raid though.
The arrested hostage-taker, whose identity was not immediately available, was reportedly of Syrian origin and has told Turkish police officials that he tried to rob the bank in order to pay for health services his family urgently needed.
Initial investigations show the Syrian national acted alone, and had no affiliation to any militant group.
On March 31, gunmen from the far-leftist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C) raided the sixth floor of the Caglayan courthouse in Turkey’s most populous city of Istanbul, and took prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz hostage.
Kiraz was investigating the killing of Berkin Elvan, who had died on March 11, 2014 after spending 269 days in a coma due to injuries inflicted by police in early summer 2013.
The prosecutor succumbed to the injuries sustained during a six-hour hostage drama, in which security forces killed the man’s two captors.
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