Turkish court convicts Syrian woman over Istanbul bombing, media says

[April 26, 2024]  ISTANBUL (Reuters) -A Turkish court sentenced Ahlam Albashir, a Syrian national, to life in prison on Friday over a 2022 bombing that killed six people in Istanbul's main shopping street, Demiroren news agency (DHA) and other media said. 

View of ambulances and police at the scene after an explosion on busy pedestrian Istiklal street in Istanbul, Turkey, November 13, 2022. REUTERS/Kemal Aslan/File Photo

Six Turkish citizens, two members each of three families, were killed in the attack on Nov. 13, 2022. The explosion also wounded about 100 people in the busy street packed with shoppers and tourists.

DHA said the court imposed a total of seven life sentences on Albashir, who was previously identified by police as the person who planted the bomb. The verdicts on the other 35 defendants in the case were not immediately clear.

Turkey blamed Kurdish militants for the explosion, saying the order for the attack on Istiklal Avenue was given in Kobani in northern Syria, where Turkish forces have conducted operations against a Syrian Kurdish militia in recent years.

That militia and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has fought a decades-old insurgency against the Turkish state, denied involvement in the attack. No group claimed responsibility.

Istanbul has been attacked in the past by Kurdish, Islamist and leftist militants. A wave of bombings and other attacks began nationwide when a ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK broke down in mid-2015.

(Reporting by Daren Butler;Editing by Ezgi Erkoyun, William Maclean)

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