A high criminal court in İstanbul on Wednesday handed down an aggravated life sentence to İsmail Akkol for the 1996 murder of businessman Özdemir Sabancı and two others.
Akkol is a member of the far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C).
Sabancı, the head of Sabancı Holding, one of the biggest family-owned conglomerates in Turkey, was killed along with Haluk Görgün, director of the holding’s Toyota distributer ToyotaSa, and his secretary Nilgün Hasefe at İstanbul’s Sabancı Center 21 years ago.
Akkol, one of the accomplices in the murder, was detained in February 2016 in Turkey after 20 years when attempting to flee the country.
Akkol’s trial was held at the İstanbul 18th High Criminal Court, which issued its final ruling on Wednesday.
Akkol pleaded for acquittal, yet the court gave him an aggravated life sentence on charges of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order.
Last February, a Belgian court sentenced Fehriye Erdal, the prime suspect in the Sabancı murder, in absentia to 15 years in prison for the murder of Sabancı. In addition to the 15 years, Erdal was sentenced to the deprivation of civil and political rights for 10 years.