A Turkish court has arrested 17 of 51 suspects in connection with a deadly explosion in İstanbul, including the suspected bomber, a Syrian woman named Ahlam Albashir, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Friday.
Six people were killed and 81 others wounded on Nov. 13 when an explosion rocked İstiklal Avenue, a busy pedestrian street that runs through İstanbul’s central district of Beyoğlu.
Seventeen suspects were arrested on charges of “disrupting the unity and integrity of the state,” “premeditated murder,” “accessory to premeditated murder” and “attempted murder,” while the court released three suspects pending trial and ruled to deport 29 others, Anadolu said, adding that two of the suspects were previously released after police questioning.
Among those arrested were Albashir; Yasir El Korali, the owner of the pirate taxi she took after the explosion; and Ammar Jarkas, an alleged migrant smuggler who said he drove Albashir to a house and his brother Ahmed Jarkas.
Albashir told the police she and Bilal Hassan, one of the suspects, illegally traveled to Hatay and from there to İstanbul on July 27 and that they stayed in a house in İstanbul for four months, pretending to be a couple.
Albashir added that she later learned that the house where she was staying with Hassan and the place where they were pretending to work belonged to Ferhat Habeş, who was also found to have disseminated terrorist propaganda on social media, according to Anadolu.
She confessed that she and Yasir El Korali had gone to Taksim twice for reconnaissance and wandered around İstiklal Street, Anadolu said, adding that Albashir also admitted to leaving a bag containing the explosive device on a street bench on Nov. 13 but claimed she did not know what was inside it.
Journalist Hediye Levent on Thursday said in a series of tweets that Dr. Kamal-Al-Labwani, a prominent member of the Syrian opposition, claimed in a video he released on YouTube that Albashir wasn’t a Syrian national.
Sharing the video in a tweet, Levent said: “In summary, he says ‘Thank you to Turkey. We researched Albashir, we asked everywhere. We couldn’t find any neighbors or anyone who knew her or any record [of her] in the Syrian state.’”
Labwani 80'lerden beri Şam'a muhalif, İngiltere'de yaşıyor ve muhalefetin önemli isimlerinden.
Özetle diyor ki;
-Türkiye'ye müteşekkiriz
-El Beşiri'yi araştırdık, her yere sorduk. Ne komşu bulabildik ne tanıyan ne de Suriye devletinde bir kayıt. https://t.co/GxZO15biKP— Hediye Levent (@hediyelevent) November 17, 2022
The Turkish government says Albashir is a Syrian national trained by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community and has waged a deadly insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s.
However, surprising observers, the PKK and Syrian Kurdish militant group the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) have denied any role, raising questions on social media and elsewhere about the official line.
Kurdish Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) Co-chair Salih Muslim claimed in an interview with Fırat News Agency (ANF) earlier this week that Albashir had links to the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA).