Canan Kaftancıoğlu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) for Istanbul said on Thursday that they believed an armed attack targeted the party’s offices in the city’s Seyrantepe district. An investigation was launched into the incident, which came about one week after bullets hit the Istanbul offices of CHP ally Good Party (IP).
Kaftancıoğlu said in a statement that the incident took place around 5 a.m. in the morning. “Accounts of a police officer inside the building and a security guard outside the building say six or seven shots were fired. There was no sign of bullets but empty shells were found at the scene,” Kaftancıoğlu said, noting that the prosecutor’s office was conducting an investigation into the incident.
The Istanbul Governorate said in a statement on Thursday that initial investigations based on security camera footage showed that the bullets were fired from a car speeding on the highway near the CHP offices. The statement said bullets were fired into air and two bullet casings were found on the roadside.
The "attack" on IP turned out to be a case of stray bullets fired by construction site staff chasing away thieves but IP adhered to the rhetoric that it was an act of intimidation toward the party ahead of the elections. The party's chair Meral Akşener showed what she claimed to be bullets found at the scene during a speech at Parliament on Wednesday before angrily tossing them, after accusing the government of covering up the investigation of the incident. Her "bullet show" has drawn the ire of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which called the stunt "ugly."
