Turkey vows to hunt down 'dark forces' behind Istanbul hostage-taking

[April 01, 2015]  ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's justice minister said on Wednesday two hostage takers who seized an Istanbul prosecutor had "held a gun to the nation" and vowed to hunt down the "dark forces" responsible, after all three were killed in a police rescue attempt.

Two members of the extreme leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) took prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz, 46, hostage in his office in Istanbul on Tuesday.

Kiraz had been leading an investigation into the death last March of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, who died nine months after falling into a coma from a head wound sustained from a police tear gas canister during anti-government protests in 2013.

The hostage-taking was an act of revenge for Elvan's death, the DHKP-C said on its website.

"We don't see this as an attack on our deceased prosecutor, but on the whole justice system. It is a gun directed at our nation," Justice Minister Kenan Ipek told mourners at a ceremony attended by hundreds of lawyers and judges.

"Our state is powerful enough to track down those behind these lowlifes ... The fact these assassins are dead shouldn't put those nefarious and dark forces at ease," he said, as Kiraz's coffin, draped with the red Turkish flag, stood on display in the courthouse foyer.

Separately, a gunman was detained by armed police on Wednesday after entering an office of the ruling AK Party in another Istanbul suburb and hanging a Turkish flag with the emblem of a sword added to it from a top-floor window.

PROTESTS

DHKP-C sympathizers clashed with police in two Istanbul neighborhoods overnight, local media reported.

A leftist union website meanwhile said riot police detained 36 students at Istanbul University after posters referring to one of the dead hostage takers was hung in the law faculty.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned late on Tuesday of the risk of increased violence ahead of a June general election, urging all parties to "form a united front against terrorism".

On his Twitter account, Deputy Prime Minister Emrullah Isler accused the hostage-takers of links to groups which incited violence during the 2013 unrest in which Elvan was injured.

President Tayyip Erdogan has in the past described the teenager as a "terrorists' pawn."

The DHKP-C is a Marxist group formed in the late 1970s that has been behind a series of assassinations and suicide bombings, including fatal attacks on the U.S. Embassy. The Turkish police have also been a frequent target.

The United States, European Union and Turkey list the DHKP-C as a terrorist organization.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Hugh Lawson)

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