Moscow has been closely following the trial in Ankara over the murder of Russian Hero and Russian Ambassador to Ankara Andrei Karlov and is satisfied that the verdict has finally been issued and expects Ankara to hand over exhaustive information about those who ordered the murder, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Earlier, the court in Ankara announced the verdict in the case of the murder of Andrei Karlov. Of the 19 defendants, five received life sentences, nine were sentenced to prison terms of three years and nine months to 15 years and five were acquitted. The cases of nine wanted defendants, including opposition preacher Fethullah Gulen, were transferred to separate proceedings at the request of the prosecutor's office.
"We have been closely following the trial in Ankara over the murder of Russian Hero, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Andrei Karlov in a terrorist attack on December 19, 2016. It is gratifying that Turkey's law enforcement and judicial systems have finally made a decision regarding this tragic incident that has left a heavy mark in the history of contemporary Russian-Turkish relations," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on its official website.
The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that "we pay tribute to the fact that Turkish justice has strongly condemned this terrorist act, the victim of which was a prominent Russian diplomat." "We state that the development of bilateral ties in recent years gives grounds to believe that they have passed this difficult, in the full sense of the word, unprecedented test," the ministry pointed out.
Moscow "expects to continue close cooperation between Russian and Turkish investigative bodies and to promptly receive from Ankara exhaustive information about the results and conclusions of the trial, the direct customers and organizers of this terrorist act," the Russian Foreign Ministry added.
Smolenskaya Square also added that the Russian Federation continues to assume that a significant share of responsibility for this crime lies with certain circles, which on the eve of the assassination attempt on Andrei Karlov artificially inflamed the negative atmosphere in the media and social networks around Russia's actions in Syria.
Karlov was shot dead on December 19, 2016, at the opening of the photo exhibition "Russia from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka through the eyes of a traveler" in Ankara. According to Turkish authorities, the attack was carried out by police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas, and he was eliminated by security forces. Charges have been filed against 28 suspects, including Gulen, who denies the charges. The indictment states that Karlov's murder was a provocation aimed at damaging Turkish-Russian relations.
The trial for the murder of the Russian ambassador began on January 8, 2019.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from RIA Novosti