Site icon Turkish Minute

Popular İstanbul nightclub Reina demolished after New Year’s tragedy

This photo taken on May 22, 2017 near Bosphorus bridge in Istanbul shows the remaining debris from the demolition of the Reina nightclub. Istanbul authorities on May 22 demolished the Reina nightclub, that was targeted by a New Year's night jihadist gun attack that left 39 dead, saying it had violated legislation. Once the favoured glamour haunt of the city's monied elite, the waterside Bosphorus nightclub was hit by horror on New Year's night when an Uzbek gunman went on a rampage killing 39, mainly foreigners. The attack was later claimed by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, the first clear claim it had made for an attack in Turkey. / AFP PHOTO / YASIN AKGUL

One of the most popular nightclubs in İstanbul, Reina, was demolished by municipal workers on Monday almost five months after it became the scene of a terrorist attack in which 39 people were killed on New Year’s day.

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attack.

Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbek citizen who is accused of killing 39 people at the nightclub with an automatic weapon, was apprehended in a joint operation carried out by the İstanbul police and Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) in İstanbul’s Esenyurt district in mid-January.

In an interview with the Habertürk daily in late January, Ali Ünal, one of the partners of the nightclub, said he does not feel like restarting the nightclub in a place where so many people were massacred. “I do not want to sell entertainment to people where that many people died,” he said, adding that they sent the bodies of the victims to all parts of the world after the massacre.

Most of the victims of the Reina attack were foreigners.

 

Liked it? Take a second to support Turkish Minute on Patreon!
Exit mobile version