A bloody assassination attempt shook Turkeyin the late hours of July 26, after a high-ranking representative of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), his son and nephew were brutally shot.
The victim is Mehmet Direk, member of the party's Central District Management Board in the city of Batman. The attack took place in the cemetery Asri Cemetery, located in the “Çamladzha“ neighborhood.
According to an official statement by Batman Governorate, in the shooting a total of three people were killed and two others were injured. The victims were identified as Mehmet Direk, his son Ercan Direk and his nephew Bekir Direk. They were visiting the cemetery park when they came under crossfire from an ambush.
After receiving the report of the shooting, numerous ambulances and heavily armed police teams were dispatched to the scene, immediately cordoning off the area in a wide perimeter. The arriving medical teams only declared the three men dead, whose bodies were transferred to the morgue after an examination by the Republican Prosecutor.
The AKP People's Representative in Batman Province, Ferhat Nasroglu, made an official statement on social media confirming the identities of the victims. He expressed his condolences to the Direk family and the party organization, describing what happened as a “treacherous and disgusting attack“.
Police in Turkey are on alert and have launched a large-scale operation to search for the perpetrators. Forensics are reviewing surveillance cameras around the cemetery park. The Batman Police Department confirmed that two suspects have already been detained for complicity in the crime. Investigators are working on several versions of the motive for the execution, including political assassination and local feud.