Investigators find Russia envoy assassin’s link to FETO

By Serdar Acil and Cemil Murat Budak

ANKARA (AA) - The assassinator of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was found to have links to the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), according to an indictment revealed Friday.

Concluding a two-year investigation, Turkish prosecutors indicted 28 suspects, including the terror group’s ringleader Fetullah Gulen, and other senior FETO members.

Several suspects familiar with off-duty police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas -- who assassinated Andrey Karlov at an Ankara art gallery on Dec. 19, 2016 -- confirmed to investigators that he had attended gatherings where publications and sermons of Gulen were read and viewed.

According to judicial sources speaking on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media, one of Altintas’s police academy classmates Kaan Bulbul said the gunman had a "withdrawn" personality with no tendency to speak much with others.

"When I spoke to them [Altintas and his friend], they told me that they had links to this structure [FETO]," Cem Yildiz, a witness, told investigators.

Yildiz said that the pair later claimed that they had cut ties with the group, according to the sources.

The sources also said that the other suspects cited Altintas’s "excited" character.

Recalling a phone conversation with Altintas, witness Ibrahim Bilal Oduncu is said to have alleged the gunman was planning to travel to Syria to "help suffering Muslims" in the war-torn country because he was suffering from depression.

The indictment has been submitted to an Ankara court.

Suspects are accused of violation of constitutional order, being member of an armed terror group, and deliberate killing with objective of spreading terror.

In addition, the indictment says the assassination is an act of provocation targeting Turkey-Russia relations.

FETO and its U.S.-based leader Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016 that martyred 251 people and injured nearly 2,200 others.

Ankara accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.