Turkish police have captured the gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year's Day after a two-week manhunt, authorities said on Tuesday (January 17), seizing him with four other suspects at a hideout in an outlying suburb of the city.
Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin named the man as Abdulgadir Masharipov and said he was born in 1983 in Uzbekistan and received training in Afghanistan. He had admitted his guilt and his fingerprints matched those at the scene, Sahin said.
He added that Masharipov was well-educated, spoke four languages and had entered Turkey illegally through its eastern borders.
“It is clear that this attack was carried out for Daesh (Islamic State),” he added.
Masharipov was seized with an Iraqi man and three women from Africa, one of them from Egypt, in the Esenyurt district on Istanbul's western outskirts.
Dozens of people have previously been detained in connection with the attack for which Islamic State has claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.
On January 1, 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.
Dogan news agency published a photo of the alleged attacker with a black eye, a cut above his eyebrow and bloodstains on his face and t-shirt. It broadcast footage showing plain-clothes police leading a man in a white t-shirt to a waiting car.
The suspect was being questioned at Istanbul police headquarters, while other people were detained in raids across the city targeting Uzbek Islamic State cells, state-run Anadolu news agency said.