A court in Istanbul ordered 17 suspects jailed pending trial in connection with the PKK/YPG terrorist group's attack on the city's Istiklal Street last Sunday. The suspects, including the Syrian national who left the explosives at the scene, are charged with attempts against the unity of the state, deliberate killings and attempts to kill.
The court released three other suspects from custody pending trial. It also ordered the deportation from Türkiye of 29 people who were rounded up by police in connection with the attack. The Nov. 13 explosion targeted Istanbul’s bustling Istiklal Street a popular thoroughfare lined with shops and restaurants and left six people dead, including two children. More than 80 others were wounded.
Prosecutors questioned the main suspect in the attack, a Syrian woman who is accused of leaving a TNT-laden bomb at the scene, for some five hours. The woman, identified as A.A., was captured on security camera footage leaving the bomb and fleeing the scene. She was caught in a police raid in Istanbul's Küçükçekmece district on Monday. A trial date is expected to be set after prosecutors prepare their indictment, which could take months.
One suspect was apprehended by Turkish police late Wednesday in the Syrian city of Azaz, which is currently under the control of the Syrian opposition and was being questioned by police.
A newly disclosed security camera footage, made public on Friday, showed A.A. near the scene of Sunday's terrorist attack more than a week earlier. The footage of A.A. scouting Istiklal emerged in an official investigation of the Nov. 13 terrorist attack. In the footage from Nov. 4, A.A. is wearing jeans and a headscarf and is walking down the street around 5:30 p.m. local time. She is also carrying roses in her hand, just as she did on the day of the attack.
The police said earlier that A.A. confessed that she was trained by the PKK/YPG terrorist group as an intelligence operative and entered Türkiye illegally from Afrin, Syria.
In her statement to prosecutors on Thursday, A.A. claimed the terrorist group ordered her to travel to Türkiye but did not tell her the purpose of her visit. She said the group threatened her with hurting her family if she opposed the order. She said she arrived in Türkiye with fugitive suspect B.H. and her visits to Istiklal Street were solely for a tourist visit, not reconnaissance for the terrorist attack. She claimed she did not know that the bag she was carrying around contained explosives but left it anyway when she was ordered to do so.
A.A. and others were transferred to the Marmara prison complex, formerly known as the Silivri prison complex, where most terrorist suspects are held, including those convicted of membership of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).