ISTANBUL: A police officer died Monday after being shot and seriously wounded during an early morning drug raid in Istanbul, Turkish officials said.
Officer Emre Albayrak died of his wounds in a hospital. He was part of a special operations team carrying out the raid in the Cekmekoy district on Istanbul’s Asian side.
“Our police officer Emre Albayrak, who was seriously injured in a narcotics operation in the Cekmekoy district, could not be saved despite all interventions in the hospital to which he was taken and became a martyr,” Istanbul Governor’s Office said in a statement.
The man who opened fire on police was killed and two other suspects were detained, the office said.
Turkiye has experienced a rise in drug-related crime in recent years. There was a 23 percent rise in drug-related incidents last year compared to 2023, according to a National Police Counter-Narcotics Department report.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said in a social media post Monday that 970 suspects had been detained in nationwide counter-narcotics operations over the previous week.
Turkish police officer dies from gunshot wounds suffered in Istanbul drug raid
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Turkish police officer dies from gunshot wounds suffered in Istanbul drug raid
- The man who opened fire on police was killed and two other suspects were detained
US condemns Houthi detention of embassy staff in Yemen. Guterres seeks release of all detained UN staff
- US State Department says the sham proceedings only prove that the Houthis rely on the use of terror against their own people to stay in power
- UN Secretary General says the continued Houthi detention and prosecution of UN personnel is a violation of international law
WASHINGTON/UNITED NATIONS: The US on Wednesday condemned the ongoing detention of current and former local staffers of the US embassy in Yemen by the Houthi movement.
“The United States condemns the Houthis’ ongoing unlawful detention of current and former local staff of the US Mission to Yemen,” US State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.
“The Houthis’ arrests of those staff, and the sham proceedings that have been brought against them, are further evidence that the Houthis rely on the use of terror against their own people as a way to stay in power,” Pigott said.
Earlier, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Houthi rebels not to prosecute detained UN personnel and to work “in good faith” to immediately release all detained staff from the UN and foreign agencies and missions.
Guterres condemned the referrals of the UN personnel to the Houthis’ special criminal court and called the detentions of UN staff a violation of international law, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
There are currently 59 UN personnel, all Yemeni nationals, detained by the Iranian-backed Houthis, in addition to dozens from nongovernmental organizations, civil society and diplomatic missions, he said.
He said a number of them have been referred to the criminal court in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. “There were procedures going on in the court, I believe, today and all of this is very, very worrying to us,” Dujarric said.
The court in late November convicted 17 people of spying for foreign governments, part of a yearslong Houthi crackdown on Yemeni staffers working for foreign organizations.
The court said the 17 people were part of “espionage cells within a spy network affiliated with the American, Israeli and Saudi intelligence,” according to the Houthi-run SABA news agency. They were sentenced to death by firing squad in public, but a lawyer for some of them said the sentence can be appealed.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement Tuesday that one of those referred to the court was from his office. He said the colleague, who has been detained since November 2021, was presented to the “so-called” court “on fabricated charges of espionage connected to his work.”
“This is totally unacceptable and a grave human rights violence,” Türk said.
He said detainees have been held in “intolerable conditions” and his office has received “very concerning reports of mistreatment of numerous staff.” Dujarric said some have been held incommunicado for years.
Dujarric said the UN is in constant contact with the Houthis, and the secretary-general and others have also raised the issue of the detainees with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Oman and others.
The Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014 and since then they have been engaged in a civil war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.
The November verdict was the latest in the Houthi crackdown in areas of Yemen under their control. They have imprisoned thousands of people during the civil war.
