Turkish police capture suspected Istanbul New Year nightclub attacker

Turkish police have arrested the main suspect in the New Year's Eve attack on an exclusive nightclub in Istanbul after a huge manhunt

An image, being circulated on Turkish media, appears to show the suspect bloodied and bruised
An image, being circulated on Turkish media, appears to show the suspect bloodied and bruised

Turkish police have captured the suspected gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub in the early hours of New Year's Day, after a two-week nationwide manhunt.

According to state-run Anadolu news agency, the alleged attacker, whom it and other media named as Abdulgadir Masharipov, was detained with a man of Kyrgyz origin and three woman from Egypt, Senegal and Somalia in Istanbul's Esenyurt district.

"I congratulate our police who caught the perpetrator of the Ortakoy massacre," Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, who is also the government spokesman, said on social network Twitter.

"Our war with terror and the powers behind it will continue to the end," he added.

The suspected gunman of Uzbek origin was caught in an apartment at a housing complex on the European side of Istanbul with his four-year-old son at around 11:00pm (9:00pm CET) on Monday, the Hurriyet newspaper website said.

According to Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin, the suspect was trained in Afghanistan, adding that he was believed to have entered Turkey in January 2016.

The suspect was being questioned at Istanbul police headquarters, while other people were detained in raids across the city targeting Uzbek Islamic State cells, Anadolu reported.

Sahin later said the suspect had confessed to the attack and that his fingerprints matched those found at the scene.

On 1 January, the attacker shot his way into the Reina nightclub then opened fire with an automatic rifle, reloading his weapon half a dozen times and shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground.

Besides Turks, citizens of Israel, France, Tunisia, Lebanon, India, Belgium, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were among the victims, and dozens of people were injured.

The Islamic State said it was behind the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.