Armed Left Group DHKC Attempts at The Life of Former MoJ

Hikmet Sami Türk is held responsible for the operations into prisons in 2000, which left 31 inmates and two soldiers dead. Two militants caught, Türk avoids the attack unharmed.

Bawer Çakır

Revolutionary People's Liberation Front (DHKC) assumes responsibility of the failed attempt to murder former Minister of Justice Hikmet Sami Türk. He avoided the attack unharmed.

In a written statement, illegal leftist organization said yesterday's attack was a reaction to the security forces' operation into prisons -dubbed as 'Return to Life'- in 1999 and 2000, which left 31 inmates and two soldiers dead. Türk was in charge then.

Yesterday, a young woman disguised as a student approached Türk as he was entering the classroom to give a lecture in Bilkent University in Ankara. Türk's bodyguards counteracted and prevented the woman militant (20) from detonating a bomb folded around her body. She and another male militant were taken under police custody.

During the week of December 19-26, 2000, 10 thousand soldiers violently occupied 48 prisons to end two months of hunger strikes and "death fasts" by hundreds of political prisoners.

The hunger strikers are protesting the state's plan to transfer its prisoners from large wards to US-style "F-type" cells holding one to three occupants. Eight prisoners are reportedly "disappeared", and at least 426 prisoners have been wounded during the operations.

Following the operation in 2000, 167 inmates were tried with "organized armed rebellion." The case has become statue barred.(BÇ/AGÜ)