A broken window pictured at the scene of the attack in Istanbul.
Turkey sentences 6 to life in prison for 2016 airport attack
Court indictment says Islamic State terrorists "targeted the Turkish republic" with the attack that killed 45 people at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport in June 2016.
Friday 16/11/2018
A broken window pictured at the scene of the attack in Istanbul.
ANKARA - A Turkish court has handed life prison sentences to six people convicted over a 2016 attack at Istanbul's main Ataturk airport which killed 45 people, the state-owned Anadolu news agency reported on Friday.
No group claimed responsibility for the triple suicide bombing at the airport on June 28, 2016, but Turkey maintains it was the work of Islamic State militants. It was one of several attacks blamed on the group in Turkey that year. The six defendants were sentenced to life in prison without parole after they were found guilty of murder, damaging property and of attempting to destroy Turkey's constitutional order, Anadolu said.
The court indictment said IS had "targeted the Turkish republic" with the attack. Nineteen foreigners were among those killed in the suicide bombings.
A total of 46 people were tried over the attack on terror-related charges including membership of an armed terrorist organisation and forming and running a terror group, the news agency said.
Turkish media had previously identified the man who organised the assault as Akhmed Chatayev, the Chechen leader of an IS cell in Istanbul who reportedly found accommodation for the bombers.
It did not give details of other verdicts and sentences handed to the defendants but said 16 of them were Russian nationals, while the others were Chechen, Tunisian, Egyptian, Algerian, Syrian and Turkish citizens.