A recently-acquired video shows Fehriye Erdal, a member of the terrorist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C) meeting with other DHKP-C members. Obtained from Belgian sources, the video raises the question of why Belgian police are yet to capture her, despite their awareness of her membership to a proscribed terrorist organization.
Erdal was involved in the killing of a prominent Turkish businessman, Özdemir Sabancı, in 1996. After she was hired as a cleaning lady by Sabancı Holding, she assisted İsmail Akkol and Mustafa Duyar to enter the Sabancı management offices - at the time, one of Turkey's best protected - and assassinated Özdemir Sabancı along with Haluk Görgün, the general manager of ToyotaSA, and secretary Nilgün Hasefe. Erdal then fled first to Greece by hiding in a truck and then to Belgium. Erdal was captured in Belgium in 1999, but was not extradited to Turkey despite numerous efforts. She was acquitted of all charges in 2008 and went missing. Belgium does not recognize her as a terrorist and describes her as a "gang member."
Opposed to Turkey's determined stance against the terrorist PKK and DAESH organizations, Belgium has been a safe haven for various terrorist organizations and has turned a deaf ear to Ankara's constant demands for the extradition of the terrorists. Belgium's stance toward the terrorist PKK and DHKP-C has drawn ire from Turkish officials, as both terrorist organizations are included on the EU's terror list.
Even though Turkey deported İbrahim El Bakraoui, one of the suicide bombers in last week's Brussels attacks, from Turkey's southeastern province of Gaziantep in July of 2015, Belgium has rejected Turkey's repeated demands to extradite PKK and other terrorist group members and continues to offer them safe haven. Ankara has demanded that 30 terrorists be extradited from Belgium, but 20 extradition orders were rejected, while the processes for nine are still pending and one, Fidan Doğan, was murdered in Paris.
