Assassination of Andrei Karlov
, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, was assassinated by Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, an off-duty Turkish police officer, at an art exhibition in Ankara, Turkey on the evening of 19 December 2016. The assassination took place after several days of protests in Turkey over Russian involvement in the Syrian Civil War and the battle over Aleppo.
Background
The assassination took place after a long period of highly polarized and incited political atmosphere in Turkey, and after several days of protests by Turks against Russian involvement in the Syrian Civil War and in particular the battle over Aleppo. Russian and Turkish officials held talks on brokering a ceasefire in Syria during the evacuation of Aleppo. Russia, Turkey and Iran planned to meet to negotiate a settlement over the Syrian Civil War.Assassination
Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, had been invited to deliver a speech at the opening of an exhibition of Turkish photography of the Russian countryside. The exhibition, "Russia through Turks' eyes", was being held at the municipality owned Cagdas Sanat Merkezi centre for modern arts in Ankara's Çankaya district.Mevlüt Altıntaş entered the hall using his police identification, leading gallery security and attendees to believe he was one of Karlov's personal bodyguards. Karlov had begun his speech when Altıntaş suddenly fired several shots at the Russian ambassador from the back, fatally wounding him and injuring several other people.
After shooting Karlov, Altıntaş circled the room, smashing pictures that were on display and shouting in Arabic and Turkish: "Allahu Akbar. We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Muhammad, for jihad. Do not forget Aleppo, do not forget Syria" and "We die in Aleppo, you die here". Shortly after, Altıntaş was shot and killed by Turkish security forces. Karlov was taken to the hospital, but died from his injuries.
Motivation
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared that the shooting was designed to disrupt the warming Russia–Turkey relations. The New York Times suggested a possible motive was revenge for the Russian Air Force's targeting of rebel-held areas in Aleppo.Although seemingly an act of revenge against Russian military involvement in Aleppo as part of the ongoing Syrian Civil War, some have suspected Islamic extremism or anti-Russian sentiment to be the cause of the attack. President-elect of the United States Donald Trump accused the assassin of being "a radical Islamic terrorist", and the Russian State Duma said that "The culprits in this monstrous provocation, both the executors and those who guided the terrorist's hand by instigating Russophobia, ethnic, religious and confessional hatred, extremism and fanaticism, must face their deserved punishment".
Allegations of NATO involvement have circulated among government officials and commentators, as well as involvement by the jihadist movements of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham – two groups which Turkey has been accused of supporting in the past – have been made. Turkish authorities are reportedly investigating Altıntaş' links to the Gülen movement; in a speech, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claimed that the perpetrator was a member of "FETÖ". The attack was praised by ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliated accounts on social media. The words spoken by the assassin are similar to the unofficial anthem of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.
According to Turkish officials and the Russian delegation that arrived in Turkey after the murder, the Gülen movement was behind the assassination for the purpose of sabotaging Russia-Turkey relations.
People involved
Victim
Born in Moscow in 1954, Andrei Gennadyevich Karlov was educated at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and the Diplomatic Academy. He began his career with the government at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR in 1976. Karlov spoke fluent Korean and held various diplomatic positions at the Russian embassy to North Korea, including as Russian ambassador to North Korea from June 2001 to December 2006. He had been Russian ambassador to Turkey since July 2013.Andrei Karlov is the fourth Russian diplomat to have died in the line of duty, after Alexander Griboyedov, Vatslav Vorovsky, and Pyotr Voykov.
Perpetrator
The assassin was identified as Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, an off-duty Turkish riot police officer.Altıntaş grew up in a secular family from the town Söke of Aydın Province in the Aegean region of western Turkey.
After failing the university placement exam twice, he graduated from İzmir Police School in 2014. His sister was quoted as saying that "he started to perform prayer five times a day in police school". He served on an elite Ankara riot police unit for two and a half years, and had been part of the security detail for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on eight occasions since July 2016.
A Turkish newspaper reported that Altıntaş had been suspended in early October 2016 for suspected involvement in the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, but returned to duty in mid-November.
Altıntaş had visited Qatar several times. Following the assassination, his activities in Qatar have been under investigation.
Altıntaş' body was rejected by his family; his parents stated that "We are ashamed of him because of the murder and we will not claim the body of a traitor." His body was buried in a cemetery for unclaimed corpses.
Aftermath
The day after the killing, Turkish authorities arrested a number of Altıntaş' family members in his home province of Aydin, as well as his flatmate in Ankara, holding the family members for one day. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also confirmed that a Russian investigative team was scheduled to arrive in Turkey on 20 December to assist with the investigation.On 29 January 2017, Turkish prosecutors said entirety of Altıntaş' email had been deleted from his Gmail platform 2 and a half hours after the assassination, by which point Altıntaş had been shot dead by police. In March 2017 Google told the Turkish prosecutors requesting the emails, that all of Altıntaş' emails had been irrecoverably deleted.
Reactions
Many governments and heads of state condemned the attack and offered condolences to the family of Karlov and other victims of the shooting, as well as to the Russian people.While ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the assassination, it has been celebrated by its supporters. The Islamist Jaish al-Fatah coalition, which includes the Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, claimed responsibility for the assassination, according to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Youm Al-Sabea.
A Qatari journalist, Elham Badar, said the shooting was a 'human' response to 'Russian barbarism' in Aleppo and elsewhere in the conflict. New York Daily News columnist Gersh Kuntzman attracted criticism when he compared Karlov's murder to the assassination of Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Jewish student Herschel Grynszpan, saying "justice has been served." The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs later demanded an apology from the New York Daily News following the article's publication. Ukrainian MP Volodymyr Parasiuk, famous for his Euromaidan speech, has called the Russian ambassador's assassin a "hero".
A woman in the board of Al Jazeera said that she believes the murder of Andrey Karlov was justified because of the bloodshed Russia has contributed to in the Syrian civil war.