Two revolutionaries attacked Turkey’s largest courthouse before being shot dead Tuesday in an exchange of fire that also left one other person dead and five wounded. The fascist Turkish state authorities have alleged that the attackers were members of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C, although no statement has so far been released claiming responsibility for the attack.
The revolutionaries, a man and a woman, attacked a security checkpoint at the Caglayan courthouse in Istanbul, and then were killed in an exchange of fire. One other woman also was killed in the gunfire, and three police officers and two civilians were wounded.
The Caglayan courthouse, also known as the Istanbul Justice Palace, is a huge and heavily guarded court complex in the Kagithane district. It was Europe’s largest courthouse when it opened in 2011.
Footage published by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency showed the revolutionaries appearing to shoot at police before being shot dead in the building’s forecourt, while bystanders ran for cover.
Private news agency DHA reported that the elder sister of the female revolutionary appeared as a defendant at the courthouse half an hour after the attack. She faced charges of membership in a terrorist organization and possessing dangerous materials.
In March 2015, the DHKP-C group took a prosecutor hostage at the same courthouse, demanding details about the police killing of a teenager during anti-government protests the previous year. Two revolutionaries were killed by police who stormed the building, and the prosecutor later died of his injuries.
The group also claimed responsibility for a February 2013 suicide bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara in which a Turkish security guard was killed and four other people wounded.
Last year in October, four members of the DHKP-C were killed by Turkish gendarmes in Meriç, on the banks of the Evros River, while trying to cross the border between Greece and Turkey clandestinely.