Atilla Altıkat

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Colonel Atilla Altıkat was the Turkish military attaché to Ottawa, Canada, who was assassinated in 1982. The Armenian group, Justice Commandos Against Armenian Genocide, claimed responsibility for the attack. It greatly shocked the people of Ottawa and Canada, unused to such violence, and the act was forcefully condemned by the Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau.

Before being assigned to Ottawa in 1981, Altıkat had been an officer in the Turkish airforce. He was married and had two teenaged children at the time of his death at age 45. Altıkat was killed on his way to work at around 9:00 a.m. on August 23, 1982. When his car stopped for a red light on the Airport Parkway, a car stopped nearby, a passenger got out and fired nine shots from a 9mm Browning handgun through the passenger window of the car, killing the diplomat instantly.

The attack was one in a series of attacks on Turkish diplomats around the world. On April 8, 1982, the Turkish Commercial Counselor in Ottawa, Kani Güngör, had been seriously injured in a failed assassination attempt. Two years later, a group of Armenian terrorists occupied the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa, killing a Canadian security guard and seriously injuring the ambassador. While those responsible for the other two attacks were caught and prosecuted, the killing of Altıkat remains unsolved, despite the offer of a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

The event is one of in a decade-long chain of organized attacks against Turkish diplomats by Armenian terrorists. ^[1] ^[2]