Turkish special forces enter courthouse as prosecutor held at gunpoint

A far-left Turkish group took an Istanbul prosecutor hostage on Tuesday and threatened to kill him, prompting special forces to enter the courthouse and police to evacuate the building.

The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) published a picture of the prosecutor with a gun to his head and said it would kill him at 1236 GMT, three hours after gunmen stormed his office, unless its demands were met.




Istanbul police chief Selami Altinok said negotiators were talking to the two hostage-takers after the deadline passed. Turkish television stations meanwhile cut their live broadcasts, some citing a reporting ban.

"We are trying to bring the incident to an end without anyone getting hurt. Negotiators are talking to the assailants," Altinok told reporters.

The prosecutor, Mehmet Selim Kiraz, is leading an investigation into the death last March of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, who died after nine months in a coma from a head wound sustained in anti-government protests.

The DHKP-C said on its website it wanted the police officer it blames for Elvan's death to confess on television, the officers involved to be tried in "people's courts", and charges against those who attended protests for Elvan to be dropped.

Witnesses said they heard gunshots as the hostage-takers entered the building.
"We were on the sixth floor. A black-haired man wearing a suit entered the prosecutor’s room and fired a gun three times," Mehmet Hasan Kaplan, who works in the building, told Reuters, adding that the attackers also claimed to have explosives.