List of assassinated people from Turkey

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The following is an incomplete, chronological list of people from Turkey murdered by assassins mainly on political and religious grounds. Many of these were intellectuals proponent of laicism and the strict separation of religion and state, as it is defined on the Constitution of Turkey and also many diplomats who were the victims of terrorist attacks all around the world.^[1]

Contents 1 Mustafa Suphi 2 Mehmet Baydar and Bahadır Demir 3 Daniş Tunalıgil 4 İsmail Erez 5 Taha Carım 6 Bedrettin Cömert 7 Abdi İpekçi 8 Metin Yüksel 9 Cavit Orhan Tütengil 10 Ümit Kaftancıoğlu 11 Gün Sazak 12 Nihat Erim 13 Kemal Türkler 14 Atilla Altıkat 15 Muammer Aksoy 16 Turan Dursun 17 Bahriye Üçok 18 Kemal Kayacan 19 Zübeyir Akkoç 20 Uğur Mumcu 21 Onat Kutlar 22 Metin Goktepe 23 Özdemir Sabancı 24 Ahmet Taner Kışlalı 25 Gaffar Okkan 26 Necip Hablemitoğlu 27 Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin 28 Hrant Dink 29 See also 30 References

[edit] Mustafa Suphi

• 28 January 1921: Mustafa Suphi is the founder of the Communist Party of Turkey. Mustafa Suphi and his 14 comrades were assassinated while they were sailing through the Black Sea to reach Anatolia, in order to join the Independence war.

[edit] Mehmet Baydar and Bahadır Demir

• 27 January 1973: Mehmet Baydar was Turkey's consul general in Los Angeles, and Bahadır Demir his deputy, in 1973. Shot down by Armenian Genocide survivor Gourgen Yanikian in a Santa Barbara hotel who had invited them there on the pretext of a donating a painting to the Turkish government. Yanikian, sentenced to life imprisonment, was amnestied in 1984 and died shortly afterwards.

The event is considered to be the first in a decade-long chain of organized attacks against Turkish diplomats by Armenian guerrillas. ^[2]

[edit] Daniş Tunalıgil

• 22 October 1975: Turkey’s Vienna Ambassador Daniş Tunaligil was murdered by three Armenian terrorists raiding the Embassy.^[3]

[edit] İsmail Erez

• 24 October 1975: Turkey’s Paris Ambassador İsmail Erez and his driver Talip Yener were murdered by Armenian terrorists in the vicinity of the Embassy by car bomb. ^[4]

[edit] Taha Carım

• 9 June 1977: Turkey’s Vatican Ambassador Taha Carim was killed by the cross fire of two Armenian guerrillas in front of the Embassy’s residence Rome, Italy.^[5]

[edit] Bedrettin Cömert

• 11 March 1978: Art historian, scholar, literary critic and translator. He was an academician in Hacettepe University.^[6] Shot dead in his car with his wife heavily wounded by Rıfat Yıldırım, Üzeyir Bayraklı and by another man nicknamed "Ahmet" who were ultra-nationalists and directly funded by the Turkish state. Ankara 5. Tribunal Correctionnel decided that Abdullah Çatlı was the responsible. But nobody was punished as a result.

[edit] Abdi İpekçi

• 1 February 1979: Editor of the major national newspaper Milliyet.^[7] Killed in his car in the street, where he lived, by Mehmet Ali Ağca, a member of the ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves, who would later try to assassinate the Pope, John Paul II in 1981.

[edit] Metin Yüksel

• March 23, 1979: Turkish Islamic political and social activist. Shot to death outside of Istanbul's Fatih Mosque by nationalist gunmen while leaving Friday prayers.

[edit] Cavit Orhan Tütengil

• 7 December 1979: Professor of Sociology at Istanbul University, columnist of the newspaper Cumhuriyet. Shot dead at a city bus stop in Istanbul.^[8]

[edit] Ümit Kaftancıoğlu

• 11 April 1980: TV producer, writer and columnist of the newspaper Cumhuriyet. Gunned down in front of his home in Istanbul as he was about to get in his car.^[9]

[edit] Gün Sazak

• May 27, 1980: customs and tobacco minister of Turkey for shortly time, right lift politician. Murdured in front of his car while put out baggage. Radical leftist Turkish militant group Dev Sol (Revolutionary Left) claimed responsibility for the attack.

[edit] Nihat Erim

• 19 July 1980: Prime Minister of Turkey in 1971-1972, for almost 14 months. Shot to death by two gunmen in İstanbul. Radical leftist Turkish militant group Dev Sol (Revolutionary Left) claimed responsibility for the attack.

[edit] Kemal Türkler

• July 22, 1980: Socialist trade union leader and left-wing politician. Murdered in front of his home by ultra-right militants.

[edit] Atilla Altıkat

• 23 August 1982: Turkish military attaché in Canada. Assassinated in his car while driving in Ottawa, Canada by the Justice Commandos Against Armenian Genocide.

[edit] Muammer Aksoy

• 31 January 1990: Professor of law at Ankara University, Faculty of Political science; author of books on Kemalism; elected head of the Ankara Bar Association 1969, columnist of the newspaper Cumhuriyet. Shot in the back of his head in front of his house.^{[10] [11]}

[edit] Turan Dursun

• 4 September 1990 Former member of clergy, descended from Islam and wrote to criticize Islam and promote atheism. Shot to death in front of his house. Case remains unresolved.

[edit] Bahriye Üçok

• 6 October 1990: Female academic, pro-secular theologist, columnist of the newspaper Cumhuriyet. Killed by a parcel bomb.^{[12] [13]}

[edit] Kemal Kayacan

• 28 June 1992: Admiral(Retired),Former Commander of The Turkish Naval Forces. Shot dead in his House

[edit] Zübeyir Akkoç

• 13 January 1993: Union member of Kurdish origin. His murder led to the European Court of Human Rights case Akkoç v. Turkey (2000).

[edit] Uğur Mumcu

• 24 January 1993: Research journalist, columnist of the major newspaper Cumhuriyet. Killed in front of his home in Ankara by a bomb installed in his car.^[14]

[edit] Onat Kutlar

• 11 January 1995: A Prominent Turkish art critic, writer, poet, columnist for the daily Cumhuriyet and one of the founders of the Istanbul International Film Festival, died of injuries he suffered during a bomb attack at a hotel in İstanbul.^[15]

[edit] Metin Goktepe

• 8 January 1996: Kurdish journalist of Evrensel was beaten to death by Turkish police while covering civil unrest in Gazi district of Istanbul.

the frist case in turkey where the police were convicted of murder.

[edit] Özdemir Sabancı

• 9 January 1996: Businessman and a member of the Sabancı family in the second generation. Gunned down in his office in Sabancı Towers, Levent, İstanbul, by assassins hired by the leftist armed group DHKP-C. The general manager of ToyotaSA and a secretary was also killed. They had been given access to the building by Fehriye Erdal, a female member of DHKP-C, who was an employee at that time.

[edit] Ahmet Taner Kışlalı

• 21 October 1999: Academic, writer. politician, former Minister of Culture and columnist of the newspaper Cumhuriyet. Killed in Ankara by a bomb placed on the windshield of his car.^{[16] [17]}

[edit] Gaffar Okkan

• 24 January 2001: Diyarbakır Police Chief, his driver and four policemen escorting him were shot dead in a terrorist attack after they left Diyarbakır Police Department building.^[18]

[edit] Necip Hablemitoğlu

• 19 December 2002: A historian, Associate Professor from the Ankara University who was killed in an armed attack near his home in Ankara. Associated with Adenauer Foundation & gold mining in Pergamon, Turkey.^[19]

[edit] Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin

• 17 May 2006: Council of State member judge. Murdered during a session in the high court in Ankara. ^[20]

[edit] Hrant Dink

• 19 January 2007: Armenian-Turkish journalist and editor-in-chief of the weekly Armenian and Turkish language newspaper Agos in Istanbul. Shot dead in front of his newspaper's office.^[21]

[edit] See also

• Assassination
• List of assassinated people

[edit] References

Metin Goktepe