A family that lost three members in June in a deadly confrontation with a ruling party deputy has decided to leave their hometown in Şanlıurfa province due to security concerns, the Evrensel daily reported on Monday.
Days before the presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey, on June 14, a political dispute had erupted between members of the Şenyaşar family and Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy İbrahim Halil Yıldız’s family during a campaign visit by Yıldız to the Şenyaşar’s shop in Suruç.
A heated dispute turned into an armed confrontation leaving M. Şah Yıldız, brother of the AKP deputy, dead.
Sustaining injuries in the altercation, Şenyaşar brothers Adil and Celal went to the city hospital where they were brutally killed, according to the autopsy reports. The father, Esvet Şenyaşar, a Democratic Regions Party (DBP) official, was also murdered at the hospital as he was trying to visit his sons.
Fadıl Şenyaşar, brother of Adil and Celal, was arrested a few days later on charges of killing Yıldız’s brother in front of the shop, viewed by the family as self-defense.
“They killed three and no one from [the Yıldız family] has been arrested,” Mrs. Şenyaşar told the Evrensel daily.
“After such grief, all I want to see them pay for their crimes.”
Another member of the family, Osman Şenyaşar, Esvet’s brother, said police raided his home on Saturday after he filed a complaint about threats he had received, the Arti Gerçek news website reported.
İbrahim Halil Yıldız was re-elected as a member of parliament in the elections on June 24.