An indictment concerning a near-fatal drive-by shooting of singer İbrahim Tatlıses in March of this year says the attack was ordered by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) Todayszaman reported
The indictment prepared by İstanbul Specially Authorized Prosecutor Muammer Akkaş was forwarded to the İstanbul 17th High Criminal Court on Thursday. The document
mentions 12 suspects, nine of whom are currently under arrest.
The prime suspect in the case is Abdullah Uçmak, who is accused of having solicited Ersin Altun, the suspected hitman, to stage an attack that left Tatlıses seriously injured. The prosecution has established that Altun had been trained in the PKK's Makhmour camp in northern Iraq.
Possible PKK involvement in the shooting had been suspected since the first day after the attack. An email message from Ruşen Mahmutoğlu, a PKK-affiliated lawyer, was found on Uçmak's computer, accusing Tatlıses, himself a Kurd, of standing too close to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) politically. In fact, Tatlıses had agreed to run as a nominee for the AK Party in the general elections, but the AK Party decided not to nominate him as his health situation remained unclear after the attack.
There was also a second attempt on the singer's life while he was undergoing treatment at Maslak's Acıbadem Hospital.
Tatlıses -- who received several bullets to the head and had to undergo at least two brain operations -- returned last week from Germany, where he had traveled to receive physical therapy after a two-week stay at a hospital in İstanbul. No statement on his health was released after his return, but his doctors in Turkey had said prior to his departure that the singer had shown an amazing recovery, although it was too early to say whether partial paralysis of his left side would be permanent.