Reina nightclub attacker who killed 39 nabbed in Istanbul

Reina nightclub attacker Abdulgadir Masharipov, who killed 39 people in a nightclub attack in Istanbul on New Year's Eve, has been captured by Turkish security forces late Monday.




The Uzbek attacker was caught in a Daesh terror cell in Esenyurt district of Istanbul after a weeks-long intense hunt conducted by the Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT) and Istanbul police. According to reports, Masharipov's 4-year-old son was with him in the cell during the arrest.

The Daesh terrorist is now being transferred to Istanbul Police Headquarters. The moment when the terrorist and his Kyrgyz friend sheltering him was caught on camera.

Four other people, including a man of Kyrgyz origin and three women, were detained along with Masharipov.






Police have been after the terrorist since January 1. Security forces have previously raided a house in Istanbul's Maltepe district and detained Masharipov's wife, whose identity has been kept hidden. Previous reports stated that his wife and his family members had been detained by police after the attack.

The details behind the attack are expected to be revealed soon as the police captured the terrorist alive.

"I learned about the attack from TV. I didn't know that my husband was a Daesh terrorist, let alone a sympathizer," media reports had quoted his wife as saying.

After staging the attack on the nightclub, the terrorist went to a house in Zeytinburnu, where his wife and children were brought to. Masharipov then took his 4-year-old son and went missing.

"We said goodbye to each other and he left the house," Masharipov's wife told anti-terror police during her interrogation.

Previous reports have said that after attacking Reina, Masharipov went to Zeytinburnu with a taxi and asked workers at a local Uighur restaurant to give money to the driver. Uighurs were among those detained after the attack, while the owner of the restaurant, identified as Şemsettin Dursun, has denied any connection to the attack.