Russian ambassador murder: a controlled assassin?

[Richard Coleman]

Vladimir Golstein on Facebook:

My two cents.

So who the hell is this photographer who took the pictures of the Ambassador's murder?

Named Burhan Ozbilici.

The pictures are too good to be true, almost as if the other guy was posing. Once you read the comments, you see that Julia Joffe, the Russophobe extraordinaire praises the quality of pictures. That should make us all very suspicious.

Then the press begins to bombard us with the stories of the courageous photographer, who just happened to be there. In fact, that's what he says. He wasn't even invited -- just passing by and decided to stop by and make the pictures.

And sure enough there were plenty of material to shoot. Some of the pictures look as if he was no more that 10 feet away. Wasn't he afraid to make strange sounds in front of raving maniac with the loaded gun?
I went to the photographer twitter account, and I wish I could read Turkish.

He posts a lot, but whatever he posts in English and French, it is very pro-Western and anti Russia-Syrian coalition.

He has pictures of Russian planes ready to bomb the rebels (that's how he calls them, not the terrorists or jihadists); he has a photo-shopped picture of a person who looks like a mixture of Putin and F. Fillon, he has pictures of Turkish soldiers or their mothers.

He is also unbelievably narcisstic. Every third tweet of his is about how many followers he gained and lost. In short, he appears as very anti-Russian, anti-Syrian, Turkish nationalist fixated on himself.

But if some of my Turkish reading friends call tell us more about his tweets, that would be interesting. Also interesting to get the sense of Turkish coverage of Aleppo. I suspect it was as hysterical as that of England and US. Which is really troubling.

In any case, I have a hunch that this photographer did not happen there by chance. Too many strange coincidences.

Russian ambassador killing: Photographer who captured the scene

20 December 2016

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/12/19/...peaks-out/

"The event was routine enough the opening of an exhibit of photographs of Russia and when a man on stage pulled out a gun, I thought it was a theatrical flourish," he wrote. "It was anything but. Moments later the Russian ambassador was sprawled on the floor and the attacker was waving his gun at the rest of us, shouting slogans."

Almost as if on autopilot, Ozbilici continued snapping photos as the horror unfolded:

He shot the ambassador at least once more at close range and smashed some of the framed photos on the wall. In all there were at least eight shots.

Guests ran for cover, hiding behind columns and under tables. I composed myself enough to shoot pictures.

"Don't forget Aleppo. Don't forget Syria!" the gunman shouted in Turkish, referring to the Syrian city where Russian bombardments have helped drive rebels from areas they had occupied for years during the war. He also shouted "Allahu akbar" but I couldn't understand the rest of what he said in Arabic.
The ambassador, who was rushed to a nearby hospital, died shortly after being shot by the gunman, who was later identified as police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas. He was killed after a 15-minute shootout.

As for Ozbilici, who sustained no injuries from the shooting, he has been widely praised on social media for the photos he took of the assailant.

Witness to an assassination: AP photographer captures attack

By BURHAN OZBILICI
Dec. 20, 2016

https://apnews.com/eadca282d5d341a79bb464bbadc4fa11

EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press photographer Burhan Ozbilici was attending a photo exhibition Monday when a Turkish policeman opened fire, killing Russia's ambassador to Turkey. He recounts how he captured the chaotic scene with his camera despite the lethal danger.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) The event seemed routine, the opening of an exhibit of photographs of Russia. So when a man in a dark suit and tie pulled out a gun, I was stunned and thought it was a theatrical flourish.

Instead, it was a coolly calculated assassination, unfolding in front of me and others who scrambled, terrified, for cover as the trim man with short hair gunned down the Russian ambassador.

The gunshots, at least eight of them, were loud in the pristine art gallery. Pandemonium erupted. People screamed, hid behind columns and under tables and lay on the floor. I was afraid and confused, but found partial cover behind a wall and did my job: taking photographs.

The exhibition, titled "From Kaliningrad to Kamchatka, from the eyes of travelers" featured photos from Russia's westernmost Baltic region to the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the east. I decided to attend simply because it was on my way home from the Ankara office.

When I arrived, the speeches had already begun. After Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov began to make his address, I moved closer to photograph him, thinking the pictures would come in useful for stories on Turkish-Russian relations.

He was speaking softly and from what I could tell lovingly about his homeland, stopping occasionally to allow the translator to relay his words in Turkish. I remember thinking how calm and humble he seemed.

Then came the gunshots in quick succession, and panic in the audience. The ambassador's body lay on the floor, just meters (yards) away from me. I couldn't see any blood around him; I think he may have been shot in the back.

It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened: A man had died in front of me; a life had disappeared before my eyes.

I moved back and to the left, while the gunman later identified as police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas gestured with his gun at people cowering on the right side of the room.

At first, I couldn't figure out what had motivated the shooter. I thought he might be a Chechen militant. But people later said he was shouting about the Syrian city of Aleppo.

So he was probably angry about Russian bombardments of Aleppo that were aimed at driving out anti-government rebels. Many civilians have been killed in the fighting.

He also shouted "Allahu akbar," but I couldn't understand the rest of what he said in Arabic.

The gunman was agitated. He walked around the ambassador's body, smashing some of the photos hanging on the wall.

I was, of course, fearful and knew of the danger if the gunman turned toward me. But I advanced a little and photographed the man as he hectored his desperate, captive audience.

This is what I was thinking: "I'm here. Even if I get hit and injured, or killed, I'm a journalist. I have to do my work. I could run away without making any photos. ... But I wouldn't have a proper answer if people later ask me: 'Why didn't you take pictures?'"

I even thought about friends and colleagues who have died while taking photographs in conflict zones over the years.

As my mind raced, I saw that the man was agitated and yet, he was, strangely, in control of himself. He shouted at everyone to stand back. Security guards ordered us to vacate the hall and we left.

Ambulances and armored vehicles soon arrived and the police operation was launched. The gunman was later killed in a shootout.

When I returned to the office to edit my photos, I was shocked to see that the shooter was actually standing behind the ambassador as he spoke. Like a friend, or a bodyguard.

Strangely in control of himself?? And he didn't run or try to get away but hung around to be shot?? Maybe my original idea isn't so far out after all.

[Richard Coleman]

The assassin's father Israfil Altintas, noted on Friday that his son's behavior started changing after he became friends with a man identified as Sercan B, who the killer met at a police academy.
"As far as I know, he was not a member of any terrorist organization, religious network or group," Israfil Altintas told police, according to Turkish broadcaster Haberturk.

"However, he started becoming focused on his prayers, more introverted and silent after he became a policeman," the father noted, claiming that prior to joining the police force the 22-year-old was not really religious.

[Paul Rigby]

Given Corsi's background and connections, the following suggests that Gulen - here tied to Obama and Clinton, but not CIA - is set to be offered up as a post-inauguration Trumpian votive (and olive branch) to Putin.

Was this the motivation for the assassination, a move guaranteed to heighten co-operation between Ankara and Moscow?

TURKEY LINKS ASSASSIN TO OBAMA-PROTECTED IMAM

Sources connect killer of Russian ambassador to activist in Pennsylvania

JEROME R. CORSI

26 December 2016

http://www.wnd.com/2016/12/turkey-links-...cted-imam/

NEW YORK Turkish government intelligence has determined Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22 the police officer who recently assassinated Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov while the ambassador was giving a speech to open an art gallery in Ankara was a member of the Gulen organization, which claimed to be the same group that staged an unsuccessful coup in Turkey in July.

WND reported Nov. 3 the Clinton Foundation was engaged in a pay-to-play scheme to obtain Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's support for the Obama administration decision to give asylum to Fetullah Gulen, a Turkish Muslim imam the Erdogan government holds responsible for the attempted coup July 15.

He's now living in Saylorsborg, Pennsylvania.

Trusted sources close to the Turkish government have explained to WND on the condition of anonymity that assassin Mert Altintas, born in 1994, joined the police in Turkey in 2012 and graduated in 2014, when Gulen's organization, known in Turkey as the Fetullah Terrorist Organization, or FETO, was at the peak of its power in Turkey.

Assassin's links

Turkish intelligence and police units investigating the assassination of Ambassador Karlov have now established that Mevlut Mert Altintas was deeply connected with Gulen's group.

Evidence for that conclusion includes several books found at Altintas' residence authored by Gulen, as well as discovering that Altintas' sister had shared on Internet social media various FETO-supporting posts urging violent terrorist attacks in Turkey and elsewhere.

Altintas was living in an apartment in Ankara that police have established is owned by another fugitive FETO member, Abdullah Bozkurt, the Ankara representative of the FETO group's English-language propaganda newspaper "Today's Zaman," translated as "Today's Time," published daily in Turkey.

Turkish authorities are currently attempting to unlock Altintas' cell phone to gain access to messages and contact lists. They want to know any further connections into Turkey's police, military, educational institutions and justice system.

Turkish police interrogating Altintas' classmates at the police academy have learned the assassin regularly attended meetings in FETO safe houses in Turkey, as well as attending "Körfez Dershanesi," a notorious network of secondary schools that the FETO terrorist organization uses to brainwash recruits and radicalize militants.

Turkish government authorities have also documented that prior to the assassination, Altintas was under investigation by the Istanbul Department of Chief Public Prosecution as a suspect for stealing questions to the Turkish government's "Public Service Entry" exam. The Gulen organization repeatedly has stolen these exam questions and given them to their members before the exam so that they could easily infiltrate into the government staff in Turkey.

Turkish authorities investigating Altintas also revealed Altintas' connections with the Gulen terrorist organization go so deep as to include those references that first recommended Altintas as a recruit to the Turkish Police Department.

Turkish government authorities reveal they have taken action against those who provided recommendations for Altintas after concluding FETO terrorists sought to plant Altintas as a fellow terrorist secretly within the ranks of the Turkish Police Department.

Assassin's cell phone called key

Government investigators in Turkey have established Altintas used an encrypted telephone phone application known as "ByLock," a messaging application believed to generate a private security key for each device used by FETO members to remain anonymous while communicating with others in the FETO underground network.

Altintas took a sick day on the day of the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, leading Turkish intelligence authorities to suspect Altintas participated in the coup tempt alongside the putschists trying to topple the government of President Erdogan, though the role he played is not yet clear.

Turkish investigators, working in conjunction with their Russian counterparts, found the assassin maintained four different levels of security protection in his cell phone and have have begun to develop intelligence concerning Altintas' whereabouts during the July 15 coup.

By cracking the ByLock encryption on Altintas' cell phone, investigators said they found that Altintas was in the city of Erbil in Iraq while the coup attempt developed.

While violence was developing for Turkey at that time, "Altintas' cell phone was giving out a signal within a very close proximity of Erbil government palace and the CIA's office in Erbil, home of the Kurdish regional government in Iraq and the staging ground for ISIS activity in the area."

But in the week following the July 15 coup attempt, the cell phone's signal was cut off, resuming again only after Altintas began using his phone again upon his return to Ankara.

Turkish security experts now believe Altintas represents a new generation of assassins that have managed to infiltrate themselves into trusted government positions, ready to become operational assassins on call, capable of killing on demand, without any evident concern for their ability to escape.

In killing Ambassador Karlov, Altintas used a Turkish-style Canik55 TP9SA, 9×19 mm pistol, with varying capacities of a 15-plus-1 round magazine, an 18-plus-1 round magazine, and a 20-plus-1 magazine. Similar to a Glock semi-automatic pistol, the Canik55 is a high-performance, lethal weapon, generally only available in Turkey to authorized police officers.

Obama stonewalls

The intelligence tying him to the Gulen group has intensified the determination of the Turkish government to get the U.S. government to extradite Fetullah Gulen from Pennsylvania.

Since his self-imposed exile to the United States in 1999, Gulen has operated what Turkey has characterized as the Fetullah Terrorist Organization under the guise of providing educational services.

The Erdogan government has charged that a group within the Turkish army associated with FETO launched the coup attempt in Turkey on July 15 that resulted in the deaths of more than 250 people, plus the injury of another 2,500. In the course of the July 15 coup, two F-16 fighter jets under the control of Turkish military loyal to FETO bombed the presidential palace in Ankara.

"Under their deviant religious ideology, FETO considers it legitimate to engage in all kinds of self-defensive deception, conspiracy, trap and illegal activities to achieve its objectives," states a 2016 bulletin prepared by Turkey's government-run press service, the Anadolu Agency, titled "FETO's Coup Attempt in Turkey."

"With years of confidential training and dissuasion activities, members of the terrorist organization have gained a level of professionalism beyond the comprehension of ordinary people," the bulletin continues. "Its members operate with a radical devotion' and see themselves as the chosen ones'; they switch identities and commit all types of illegal acts, including murder if need be."

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim warned in July there "could even be a questioning of our friendship" if the U.S. doesn't hand over Gulen.

Also, military intelligence sources in Turkey continue to tell WND that Obama administration officials have consistently "looked the other way" regarding terrorism in Turkey, refusing to budge on Turkey's requests to extradite Gulen.

Turkey is optimistic the incoming Trump administration will take a more constructive approach to the continuing requests by the Erdogan government to assist Turkey in combating terrorism.

Financial ties to Clintons

As WND reported on Nov. 3, leaders of the Gulen movement donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, as well as to the Clinton Foundation, the Daily Caller reported in November 2015.

One of the biggest donors is Gulen lieutenant Gokhan Ozkok, who is listed on the Turkish Cultural Center's website as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.

Ozkok gave between $500,001 and $1 million to the Clinton Foundation in 2015.

The Podesta Group, managed by John Podesta's brother Tony Podesta, filed a lobbying registration form effective May 12, 2016, disclosing the group had been hired by the Alliance for Shared Values in New York, a 501©(3) non-profit organization that operates as an umbrella organization for various Gulen-affiliated organizations in the United States, including the Rumi Forum.