Two Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputies who were detained and released on Friday argued that a car bomb attack in Diyarbakır on same day for which the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility aimed to kill HDP deputies held in custody at the targeted police station.
Diyarbakır deputy Ziya Pir and Ankara deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder, who were among the HDP deputies detained as part of a crackdown against the Kurdish opposition, said that ISIL wanted to kill the HDP politicians who were being held at the police station until shortly before the car bomb attack.
Pir wrote on Twitter that Selahattin Demirtaş, Nursel Aydoğan, Gülser Yıldırım and himself were taken out of the bombed building minutes before the attack.
Önder also made a statement and argued that ISIL intended to perpetrate a massacre of Kurdish politicians in custody.
The ISIL terrorist group claimed responsibility for the car bomb in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır that killed nine people and wounded more than 100, the group’s Amaq news agency said.
A total of nine HDP deputies including the co-chairs of the party were arrested throughout Friday.
Meanwhile, police detained nine local politicians from Kurdish political parties in Adana province on Saturday morning.