PARIS: The driver of a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader shot dead in Paris with two other female activists has been charged with their murder, a French prosecutor announced on Monday.
Omer Guney, 30, was one of two ethnic Kurds detained last week by a specialist anti-terrorist unit in connection with the January 9 slayings. After an indictment hearing on Monday, he was charged with carrying out the murders as part of a terrorist group and conspiracy to commit murder as part of a terrorist group.
“We believe he is likely to have been the killer or one of the killers,” Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said. Guney was placed in provisional detention at prosecutors’ request, meaning he will remain locked up while the investigation continues. The other man detained last week was earlier freed without charge. Judicial sources said Guney was an occasional driver for one of the victims, 55-year-old Sakine Cansiz, a co-founder of the outlawed PKK. He has told police he has been a PKK member for the last two years.
Cansiz and two other women were found dead on the morning of January 10 at a Kurdish centre in the French capital. The prosecutor added however that DNA samples taken from one of the bullets used in the killings did not match up with Guney’s and stressed that the investigation remained at an early stage.
Afp
