Turkish police have arrested two suspected Daesh members as alleged perpetrators of the murder of a man attending mass at a church in Istanbul’s Sarıyer district on Sunday. “Two suspected murderers who caused the death of our citizen Tuncer Cihan during Sunday mass at St Mary’s Church in Sarıyer have been detained,” Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
“I congratulate the Istanbul police and our heroic police officers for identifying and catching the perpetrators. And I again convey my condolences to the family and relatives of our citizen who lost his life,” the minister added in a press briefing, confirming that both detainees are foreign nationals – one from Tajikistan and the other from Russia – and that both “are linked to the Daesh terrorist group“. Just last December, Turkish security forces arrested dozens of members of the group who were planning attacks on churches and synagogues in Turkey.
The arrests in recent hours come after Turkish security forces launched a massive security operation on Sunday to track down the perpetrators of the crime, searching some 30 addresses and arresting so far at least 51 suspects linked to the attack, which has shocked this quiet, residential district on the outskirts of Istanbul, located on the banks of the Bosphorus.
The murder, condemned by numerous Turkish authorities and Pope Francis, was later claimed by the Daesh terrorist group through several linked channels on Telegram, in which the organisation confirmed having “attacked a gathering of Christian infidels during their polytheist ceremony“, using its own language. The group also released photos of two masked men carrying weapons, identifying them as the attackers, and said that one of the mass attendees was killed and another injured in the action, although the Turkish authorities claim that no one was injured apart from the one deceased.
What do we know about the attack on the church?
According to the latest information released by Turkish security officials, the attack took place yesterday Sunday at around 11:40 local time (9:40 CET) during the celebration of a Sunday mass at St Mary’s Catholic Church, located on Azatlı Street in the Büyükdere neighbourhood on Istanbul’s European shore. It was then that two masked men opened fire on the worshippers, killing one of them, a 52-year-old man.
According to Turkish officials, the attack could have caused many more casualties but the weapon the attackers were carrying jammed after the first two fatal shots were fired, so the killers were forced to flee. “After the second shot, the gun stopped working, and they fled. At that moment, everyone laid to the ground. There were 35 to 40 people inside the church,” Şükrü Genç, mayor of Sarıyer district, told reporters.
The attack on St. Mary’s Church in Istanbul has sparked many messages of condemnation in Turkey, starting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan, who spoke by phone with the priest of the church, or the metropolitan mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoğlu, who after condemning what happened said that “we will never allow those who want to end our unity and our peace to attack centres of religion in our city”.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Istanbul, Bartholomew I, also expressed his condolences for the shooting to the leader of the Latin Catholic community in Istanbul, Massimiliano Palinuro. For his part, the president of the Turkish Religious Affairs Office (Diyanet), Ali Erbaş, who visited the attacked church, also condemned the crime: “Our differences are our wealth. Places of worship, especially during prayer, are completely inviolable. According to our belief, mosques, churches and synagogues are inviolable, regardless of their faith. The coexistence of people of different faiths is a very important wealth for us.”
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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