Russian Ambassador To Turkey Is Assassinated

Stunned witnesses stood and watched as an Ankara police officer dressed in a suit, shot and killed Russia’s ambassador to Turkey at a photo exhibition in Turkey’s capital on Monday.

According to officials and an Associated Press photographer who witnessed the murder, Ambassador Andrei Karlov, 62, was in the middle of a speech when Mevlut Mert Altintas fired at least eight shots at him. Altintas was later killed by police after a 15-minute shootout with police reported Turkey’s Anadolu news agency.

Altintas shot in Turkish, “Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria!”

He also shouted “Allahu akbar,” which is an Arabic phrase for “God is great” and continued in Arabic: “We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Muhammad, for jihad.”

According to the Interior Minister Suleyman Soyu, Altintas was an officer with Ankara’s riot police or more than two years. There was no motive given for the attack.

“It’s a tragic day in the history of our country and Russian diplomacy,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in televised comments.

“Ambassador Karlov has made a lot of personal contributions to the development of ties with Turkey. He has done a lot to overcome a crisis in bilateral relations,” she said. “He was a man who put his heart and his soul into his job. It’s a terrible loss for us and also the world.”