Turkish police announced Tuesday that the wife of a key figure from the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in the 2016 assassination of the Russian Ambassador in Ankara was detained in an operation.
The suspect, identified as A.S., was released with house arrest in an earlier investigation into the murder but a court later ordered nine years in prison for her, before she disappeared. Police said she was discovered hiding in Istanbul’s Beylikdüzü district and was apprehended there in a raid on Sunday.
Her husband identified as Ş.S. was accused of being a "brother" to Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, the assassin of Andrei Karlov. "Brother," in FETÖ’s jargon, refers to a senior figure in the group in charge of FETÖ’s infiltrators in law enforcement, military, judiciary, etc. A top court in June upheld two instances of lifetime imprisonment for Söğüt for his role in the terrorist group. Investigators say he relayed the order of assassination to Altıntaş, who was killed in a shootout with police. Altıntaş was an off-duty policeman at the time of the murder at an art gallery in Ankara where Karlov was attending an exhibition. The assassination, captured by cameras, shocked Türkiye and came at a time of restoration of ties between Türkiye and Russia.
A Turkish court has sentenced 12 defendants to various prison terms over the assassination of Karlov, both on charges of homicide and terrorism. Most of them were secret members of FETÖ, like Ş.S., who was in charge of Altıntaş and other undisclosed members of the terrorist group while he was working at the country’s telecom regulation watchdog.
The court said in its ruling that Altıntaş was a member of a cell of FETÖ within Turkish police.
It said that the terrorist group had multiple purposes in carrying out the assassination, including a display of its clout in Türkiye shattered by a foiled coup attempt on July 15, 2016, by FETÖ infiltrators in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Additionally, FETÖ sought to sow discord in ties between Russia and Türkiye and pave the way for "a war between countries."