Turkish terror fugitive on Belgium's most wanted list

ANKARA

Belgium has added a Turkish terror fugitive on its most wanted list, local media reported.

Sudinfo.be, a Belgium-based Francophone news website, said Fehriye Erdal, 42, who is convicted of murdering a Turkish business tycoon in 1996, has been added to the Belgium's most wanted list.

With the addition of Erdal, Belgian security forces are now looking for a total of 1,846 fugitives.

Sudinfo.be said that the Fugitive Active Search Team (FAST), a special team of police in Belgium, is tasked to search and arrest the fugitives.

It has been more than two decades since the assassination of one of the most prominent business figures in Turkey, and a prime convict in the murder is still at large.

Feb. 9, 2019 marked the 23rd anniversary of the assassination of tycoon Ozdemir Sabanci of Sabanci Holding, Turkey’s leading financial conglomerate and one of the leading industrial groups.

DHKP-C terrorist Erdal and two of her associates -- Ismail Akkol and Mustafa Duyar -- murdered Sabanci, senior executive Haluk Gorgun and secretary Nilgun Hasefe in a brazen attack on Jan. 9, 1996 at the Sabanci Center, the holding's main headquarters in Istanbul.

Duyar and Akkol were apprehended by Turkish security forces. Duyar was killed in a prison riot in 1999 and Akkol is serving a life sentence.

Erdal fled Turkey following the murder and it was in 1999 when she resurfaced in Belgium's Knokke city with a fake passport after a fire broke out in her apartment.

She was handed a 15-year prison sentence by a Turkish court in a trial heard in absentia.

Belgium rejected Ankara's extradition request for Erdal as the death penalty was still in force in Turkey back then. Erdal's request for political asylum was also rejected by Belgium.

On May 25, 2016, 20 years after the Sabanci assassination, a Brussels criminal court ruled that Erdal should be tried in Belgium over crimes she had committed in Turkey.

A Belgian prosecutor sought a 30-year aggravated prison sentence for Erdal and an additional security precaution of 15 years.

The criminal court reached a verdict in February 2017 in absentia, handing Erdal a 15-year sentence for her crimes committed in Turkey.