ISTANBUL (AP) — A court on Friday sentenced a Syrian woman to life in prison for a deadly explosion on a busy shopping district in Istanbul in 2022, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported. Alham Albashir was given seven consecutive life sentences after being convicted on terrorism charges. The blast on Nov. 13, 2022 tore through Istiklal Avenue, a thoroughfare in Istanbul lined with shops and restaurants, killing six people, including two children, and wounding 99 others. Albashir and a man named as Bilal el-Hacmaus were intelligence operatives of the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia group, and its political branch, the PYD, according to an indictment prepared by Istanbul prosecutors last year. Turkey regards the YPG as the Syrian arm of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency within Turkey to establish an autonomous region in southeastern Turkey. |
VOX POPULI: Young texters have rendered punctuation marks obsoleteImmigration tightening might only be temporaryIt's about to get more difficult for Americans to visit BrazilVOX POPULI: LDP’s Nikai’s ‘expenditures’ on books must make libraries weepNew video of 'human bear' waving emerges as expert weighs in with verdictIn pictures: Auckland's Ramadan Night Markets in New LynnASEAN summit: Myanmar community asks Parliament to block junta representativesBullying rife at Buller High School, students sayUS China updates: Beijing sanctions Lockheed Martin, Raytheon for Taiwan salesVOX POPULI: Unlike Taylor Swift, few stars in Japan speak out about politics