How an Islamic State suspect lived as a shopkeeper in Turkey
The Turkish judiciary’s weakness in dealing with Islamic State suspects comes under the spotlight after a bombshell report on how a Syrian man suspected of ordering the burning to death of two Turkish soldiers in 2016 walked free from court and lived as a shopkeeper in Turkey.
The first time that Turkey faced the deadly threat of the Islamic State (IS) on its soil was in March 2014, when three foreign IS militants opened fire at a checkpoint in the province of Nigde, killing two members of the security forces and a civilian. The culprits were sentenced to life but only after a controversial trial.
Scores of other cases against IS suspects have been marked by judicial oddities and what many observers see as obtrusive leniency on the part of the Turkish judiciary. In a country where peaceful political dissidents could languish in jail for years without conviction, many IS defendants have walked free or benefited from sentence reductions under “effective remorse” provisions, as Al-Monitor reported last month.
