ISTANBUL // Two leftist militants who had taken hostage a prosecutor inside an Istanbul courthouse were killed on Tuesday in a shoot-out with police that left their captive seriously wounded.
Prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz, who the attackers had been threatening to kill, was immediately taken to hospital.
Authorities had earlier been negotiating with the attackers but Istanbul’s police chief Selami Altinok said the decision to go in was taken when gunfire was heard during phone communications with the men.
“Our prosecutor is in hospital and seriously wounded. As a result of the operation, two terrorists were killed,” Mr Altinok said, adding that Mr Kiraz would undergo an operation
At least two explosions and several gunshots were heard at the courthouse during the shoot-out, with smoke coming out of the upper floor where Mr Kiraz was being held.
The prosecutor had been investigating the killing of Berkin Elvan, who died in March last year after spending 269 days in a coma as a result of injuries inflicted by police in the mass anti-government protests of early summer 2013.
The hostage-taking was claimed by the radical Marxist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C).
Earlier on Tuesday, the group published pictures showing one of the militants – his face concealed by a scarf with the group’s red and yellow insignia – holding a gun to Mr Kiraz’s head.
Turkish media said the group had given a deadline of 3:36pm local time on Tuesday for Mr Kiraz to identify the police officers it says were behind the killing of Elvan or he would be shot.
Elvan, who was 15 at the time of his death, was hit by a tear-gas canister fired by police and has since become an icon for the Turkish far-left.
No police officer has been brought to trial over Elvan’s death and his supporters accuse the authorities of covering up the circumstances and perpetrators of his death.
In a phone call to the opposition politician Huseyin Aygun, Elvan’s father, Sami Elvan, had urged against bloodshed, the Hurriyet newspaper reported.
“My son died but I don’t want any other person to die,” Mr Elvan said. “The prosecutor must be released. Blood cannot be washed away with blood.”
The DHKP-C is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.
Earlier this year, it claimed an attempted grenade attack on police guarding the Dolmabahce palace in Istanbul that caused no serious casualties, saying it was revenge for Elvan’s killing.
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
