Belgium sentences Turkish ‘hit squad’ over attempted assassination of Kurdish politicians

According to intercepted communications, the plotters discussed orchestrating the massacre and evading police detection. “You cause a massacre and can free me from the hands of the police,” Akkulak was quoted as saying. They sought to purchase GPS trackers and a motorcycle from which the assassination would be conducted, before fleeing in a van, and were detected surveying the KNK’s offices in Sint-Gillis, Belgium. Recorded conversations show that Koç was operating as an employee of the Turkish intelligence services, according to De Morgen, while he was also a former security officer at the Turkish embassy in Paris.

“The court considers a very strict punishment necessary to protect society against the actions of both defendants, who were prepared to pursue the civil parties to the country where asylum was obtained, with the plan to kill them there,” the judgement runs. “The facts testify to the defendants’ extremely dangerous attitude.”

The case underscores the volatility of the situation in Belgium, following an attack on a Kurdish family returning from a Newroz or Kurdish New Year celebration. This week saw an outbreak of violence, as armed gangs of Turkish men terrorised Kurdish families and elderly people in Leuven, Belgium. The ‘manhunt’, seeking out and beating ethnic Kurds which left two in critical condition, was conducted by so-called ‘Grey Wolves’, a group variously characterised as neo-fascist, ultra-nationalist and Islamist and which has met with and received vocal support from elected, Turkish politicians in Belgium. The new revelations over the 2017 assassination attempt will create further pressure on the Belgian authorities to assess the extent to which Turkish paramilitary groups and clandestine cells can operate on European soil.

Furthermore, evidence suggests potential links between the ‘hit squad’ and a broader network operating in France. The plotters are shown to have been in close contact with representatives of the Turkish National Security Council and a military mercenary group known as Sadat, colloquially termed ‘the Turkish Wagner group’.

As such, the revelations in Belgium could reignite a long-standing investigation into the assassination of three prominent female Kurdish activists in Paris in 2013. Despite the death of the prime suspect in that case, who also has links to the Grey Wolves, it’s hoped that justice can still be served. Kurdish representatives have condemned what they say is an eleven-year cover-up by the French justice and security services and demanded transparency from the French authorities over the triple murder, which evidence suggests was a contract killing carried out by Turkish intelligence. In December 2022, just weeks before the tenth anniversary of the 2013 assassinations, three more Kurdish activists were killed in an armed attack on a Kurdish cultural centre in Paris.