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

[edit] Mehmet Baydar and Bahadır Demir

Mehmet Baydar was Turkey's consul general in Los Angeles, and Bahadır Demir his deputy, in 1973.

• 27 January 1973: Shot down by 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 terrorists. ^[2]

[edit] Daniş Tunalıgil

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

[edit] İsmail Erez

• 24 October 1975: Turkey’s Paris Ambassador İsmail Erez and his driver Talip Yener were murdered 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 terrorists in front of the Embassy’s residence Rome, Italy.^[5]

[edit] Bedrettin Cömert

Art historian, scholar, literary critic and translator. He was an academician in Hacettepe University.^[6]

• 11 March 1978: 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 founded by the Turkish state. Ankara 5. Tribunal Correctionnel took the decision that Abdullah Çatlı was the responsible. But nobody was punished as a result.

[edit] Abdi İpekçi

Editor of the major national newspaper Milliyet.^[7]

• 1 February 1979: 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] Cavit Orhan Tütengil

Professor of Sociology at Istanbul University, columnist of the newspaper Cumhuriyet.

• 7 December 1979: Shot dead at a city bus stop in Istanbul.^[8]

[edit] Ümit Kaftancıoğlu

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

[edit] Nihat Erim

• Prime Minister of Turkey in 1971-1972, for almost 14 months.
• 19 July 1980: 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

Socialist trade union leader and left-wing politician.

• July 22, 1980: Murdered in front of his home by ultra-right militants.

[edit] Atilla Altıkat

Turkish military attaché in Canada

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

[edit] Muammer Aksoy

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.

• 31 January 1990: Shot in the backhead in front of his house.^{[10] [11]}

[edit] Bahriye Üçok

Female academic, pro-secular theologist, columnist of the newspaper Cumhuriyet.

• 6 October 1990: Killed by a parcel bomb.^{[12] [13]}

[edit] Zübeyir Akkoç

Union member of Kurdish origin.

• 13 January 1993: This murder led to the European Court of Human Rights case Akkoç v. Turkey (2000).

[edit] Uğur Mumcu

Research journalist, columnist of the major newspaper Cumhuriyet.

• 24 January 1993: 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] Özdemir Sabancı

Businessman and a member of the Sabancı family in the second generation.

• 9 January 1996: 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

Academic, writer. politician, former Minister of Culture and columnist of the newspaper Cumhuriyet.

• 21 October 1999: 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.^[19]

[edit] Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin

Council of State member judge

• 17 May 2006: Murdered during a session in the high court in Ankara. ^[20]

[edit] Hrant Dink

Armenian-Turkish journalist and editor-in-chief of the weekly Armenian and Turkish language newspaper Agos in Istanbul.

• 19 January 2007: Shot dead in front of his newspaper's office.^[21]

[edit] See also

• Assassination
• List of assassinated people

[edit] References