Police chief's murder stuns Turkey
A distinguished police chief from Rize was gunned down by a disgruntled officer, while Turkish media focused today on the possibility that the country's two main opposition parties may get behind a unified candidate for Ankara's mayoral elections in March.
ANKARA, Turkey — The murder of a distinguished chief of police, shot in his office today, stunned Turkey, a country with an unhappy tradition of reaching for guns to settle even minor disputes.
Altug Verdi, 46, ran the Emniyet Mudurlugu (security headquarters) in Rize, a city of 150,000 people on the Black Sea coast of northwest Turkey in a province famed for its tea plantations. He had worked with the UN peacekeeping forces of Kosovo and Haiti and served in Turkey’s consulate in Jerusalem, the prime ministry in Ankara and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT).
“He was very successful and well loved,” said Rize Gov. Kemal Ceper. Ceper told reporters the killer was a junior police officer serving in the traffic department.
The officer had met Verdi to appeal against the denial of his request to be reassigned from Rize’s outskirts to the city center as he planned to study at university. On being refused, the officer left Verdi’s office, reclaimed his pistol from the firearm depository and rushed back into the police chief’s office. He was reported to have fatally shot Verdi in the neck and wounded two other officials before being subdued.
