Duvar English

The fugitive suspect, who murdered seven members of a Kurdish family in the Central Anatolian province of Konya, has been caught six days after the massacre.

The Konya Governor's Office on Aug. 4 said that Mehmet Altun was caught in a rural area as a result of intense efforts of the gendarmerie and police.

“Mehmet Altun, the perpetrator who brutally murdered our seven citizens in Konya's Meram district on July 30, has been caught alive as a result of the coordinated and effective works of the provincial police department, provincial gendarmerie command and regional special operation unit,” said the governor's office.

The brutal murder of seven members of the Dedeoğulları family by their neighbor Mehmet Altun triggered a debate on racism.

The Kurdish family had complained of a previous attack on them on May 12, saying that dozens of people battered them because “they were Kurdish.”

The prosecutor's office and government officials however have denied the ethnic motivation behind the murder and instead blamed it on a long-running feud between two families who lived in the same area.

Altun was caught one day after the Konya Chief Public Prosecutor's Office announced that 10 people have been arrested over the armed attack against the Dedeoğulları family.

The suspects are facing charges of “willful killing.” Another four people have been released from police custody under judiciary control.

Among the arrested are Altun's wife, father, mother and sibling. 

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