The man suspected of killing 39 people at an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Eve has claimed he received the order to attack from Islamic State jihadists in Syria, local media reported on Wednesday.
Turkish authorities on Monday detained Abdulgadir Masharipov, 34, who spent 17 days on the run following the attack which was claimed by the extremist group. They also arrested an Iraqi man and three women from Egypt, Senegal and Somalia. Officials identified him as an Uzbek national who trained in Afghanistan, saying he confessed to carrying out the attack and that his fingerprints matched those of the attacker at the scene.
Using code name Ebu Muhammed Horasani, the man told police he entered Turkey through Iran in January 2016 and moved to the central city of Konya, the Hurriyet newspaper reported.“When I was in Konya, an order came from Raqa for me to carry out an attack in Taksim” Square in Istanbul, he said in testimony to Turkish police. Raqa is the self-declared capital of IS in Syria.
He moved to Istanbul on December 16 and scouted out the popular square to locate a suitable place to attack.
“I re-established contact with the person who gave me the order and we agreed that Taksim was not suitable for an attack. I was ordered to scout a new target in the area.”
Images released by cops during manhunt were taken from a silent video he purportedly took in the square with a selfie stick, before the attack.
The suspect said he later took a taxi for a tour along the shores of the Bosphorus at around 1900 GMT when he spotted the nightclub.