Turkey jails 5 to life over envoy's killing

A Turkish court on Tuesday sentenced five people to life in jail over the assassination of Russia's ambassador to Turkey in 2016.

An off-duty police officer, Mevlut Mert Altintas, fatally shot ambassador Andrei Karlov at a photo exhibition in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Dec 19, 2016. Other officers later shot and killed the gunman at the scene.

Turkish prosecutors concluded a network led by United States-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen was behind Karlov's slaying and charged 28 people, including Gulen, over the killing. Prosecutors said the attack was meant to derail warming ties between Turkey and Russia.

Ankara also accuses Gulen of orchestrating a failed coup to topple Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. Gulen, who has lived in the US since 1999, has denied involvement in the coup or the Russian diplomat's assassination. Turkey is seeking his extradition.

In the indictment, Turkish prosecutors alleged that Gulen's network sought to push Turkey and Russia to the brink of a "hot war".

Karlov was 62 and was appointed Russian ambassador to Turkey in 2013, when relations between the two countries were severely complicated by the raging war in Syria.

Tensions over Syria dominated Ankara's relations with Moscow during Karlov's term as ambassador, especially when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Turkish-Syrian border in November 2015.

Russia slapped Turkey with a series of sanctions as a result.

But Erdogan apologized in 2016 for the incident and relations started to improve when Karlov was killed.

The gunman shouted "Don't forget Aleppo", in reference to the Syrian rebels' stronghold that Syrian government forces were attacking with Russian backing.

Turkey and Russia remain on opposing sides in Syria but worked closely together on the purchase of the S-400 air defense system.

Erdogan at the time called Karlov's murder a "provocation especially aimed at disrupting the normalization process of Turkey-Russia relations".

Russian 'satisfaction'

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it received news of the convictions with "satisfaction", praising "the Turkish justice system for decisively condemning this terrorist act".

Moscow "will continue to believe that a large part of the responsibility for the crime is carried by certain groups that, on the eve of Karlov's murder, artificially whipped up negative sentiments in the media on social platforms about Russia and Syria", it said.

Karlov's widow Marina Karlova said at the opening hearing of the trial that the murder was aimed at hurting Moscow-Ankara ties.

Agencies via Xinhua contributed to this story.