Nilay Kar
17 May 2017•Update: 17 May 2017
By Murat Kaya and Muhammed Enes Can
ISTANBUL
More than two decades after the killing, the chief suspect in the murder of businessman Ozdemir Sabanci was sentenced to life imprisonment on Wednesday, a judicial official said.
Ismail Akkol, a member of the far-left terror group the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), was given an aggravated life term at Istanbul’s 18th Criminal Court -- meaning he will serve his sentence under restricted jail conditions.
He was part of a gang who broke into the Istanbul offices of Sabanci Holding on Jan. 9, 1996 and shot dead Sabanci, a board member of one of Turkey’s biggest conglomerates.
Sabanci’s secretary Nilgun Hasefe and Toyota SA General Manager Haluk Gorgun were also killed in the attack.
Akkol was arrested in the southwestern province of Aydin in February last year after he entered Turkey on a false passport from a nearby Greek island.
He was sentenced for “attempting to change constitutional order by force” on the understanding that the killing was carried out on behalf of the DHKP-C, a terrorist organization that emerged from the splintered Revolutionary Left group in 1994.
The two other alleged members of the gang were DHKP-C members Mustafa Duyar, who was killed in prison in 1999, and Fehriye Erdal, who remains free.
The court ruled to separate Erdal’s case from Akkol, the official said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media.
In February, a Belgian court sentenced Erdal to 15 years in absentia for crimes committed in Turkey, including being an accomplice in the Sabanci attack.
In the original 1997 indictment, 11 defendants were tied to the killings.
