Turkish court remands 44 in nightclub attack trial

By Huseyin Kulaoglu

ISTANBUL (AA) - A Turkish court ruled on Friday that 44 suspects must remain in detention but freed seven others under judicial control in the case of the New Year's Eve attack on a nightclub in Istanbul.

Abdulkadir Masharipov is among 57 defendants, 51 of whom were held in jail, being tried in connection with the attack on the Reina nightclub on the banks of the Bosphorus nearly a year ago.

Six of the suspects are on trial without arrest.

The court said the next hearings would be held on March 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 next year.

At least 39 people, including a police officer, were killed when a gunman opened fire on New Year's Eve partygoers at the nightclub in Istanbul’s Ortakoy District in the early hours of Jan. 1, 2017.

The fatalities included 27 foreigners and 79 people were wounded.

Masharipov, 34 at the time of the attack, was arrested in the residential Istanbul neighborhood of Esenyurt after a 17-day manhunt.

He told investigators he received orders for the attack from Raqqah, which served as Daesh’s de facto capital in Syria at the time.

He faces 40 aggravated life sentences on charges of murder, “membership of an armed terrorist organization”, weapons possession and “attempting to destroy constitutional order”.