ISTANBUL
The Anadolu Agency does not verify these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
The majority of Wednesday's newspapers dedicated their front pages to the deadly hostage situation in Istanbul, in which a Turkish prosecutor was killed, the nationwide power outage and the cancellation of convictions against 236 defendants in the country’s long-running “Sledgehammer” case.
HURRIYET’s headline read: “Damn Terror,” saying two armed terrorists martyrized the prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz in an Istanbul courthouse. It ran a photo of the damaged window of prosecutor’s office following the operation.
Turkish prosecutor Kiraz, 46, died at the hospital late Tuesday after he was shot and critically wounded in the eight-hour hostage situation at an Istanbul courthouse.
The prosecutor had been handling the case of Berkin Elvan, the 15-year-old boy who was critically injured during 2013's Gezi Park protests and died in March 2014 after a 269-day coma.
HABERTURK ran with a headline “They shot the justice,” while MILLIYET's cover page read: “Bloody act,” stating that the incident happened in Turkey’s "most heavily guarded building."
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the gunmen had entered the Okmeydani district courthouse, where security measures are tight, disguised as lawyers wearing robes. He said the prosecutor was shot multiple times in the head and body.
The attackers identified as Safak Yayla Zonguldak, born 1991, and Bahtiyar Dogruyol, born 1987, were also killed in the operation.
Tuesday’s nationwide electricity blackout was another item that many newspapers focused on.
HURRIYET headlined: “Black Tuesday,” referring to the power outage. It reported that the blackout "caused a huge chaos" across the country, running a photo of "thousands of commuters" trying to get out of an Istanbul subway station.
The power outages across the country were due to problems in transmission lines, the Turkish Electricity Transmission Company, TEIAS, said on Tuesday.
HABERTURK wrote that 80 provinces went black in the biggest power cut of the Republic's history.
AKSAM ran with the title “Dark Tuesday.” It reported that railway and health services were halted, traffic was paralyzed and there were several people who were trapped in elevators because of the blackout.
On Tuesday, a high court in Turkey cancelled convictions against 236 defendants in the country’s long-running “Sledgehammer” plot case.
HURRIYET and MILLIYET used the same titles on their front pages: “Acquittals in Sledgehammer case.”
Sledgehammer ("Balyoz" in Turkish) is the name of a plot allegedly cooked up by a junta in the Turkish Armed Forces to overthrow the government.
The plan is said to date back to 2003, one year after the ruling Justice and Development Party came to power. It allegedly aimed at undermining the government to lay the groundwork for a military takeover.
In an earlier verdict, the Turkish Supreme Court had sentenced the defendants to between six and 20 years imprisonment in September 2012.
However, Turkey’s Constitutional Court unanimously overruled that verdict in June 2014 on the grounds that the rights of the defendants had been violated, especially from digital data collection and wiretapping.
