Two arrested in Kurdish activists murder case

Two people were arrested and held in police custody in connection to the murder of three Kurdish activists in Paris in early January, French media reported on Friday.

News channel BFMTV received confirmation from a judicial source that two Kurdish men were arrested on Thursday, following what an unnamed police source called “a serious lead.”

However, judicial sources did not specify what the role the two men were suspected of having in the murders.

Fidan Dogan, Sakine Cansiz and Leyla Soylemez were shot dead in the Kurdish Institute of Paris on January 9, in what was then described by the police as a scene reminiscent of an “execution.”

The three women were involved in Kurdish activism, most notably Cansiz, who was a co-founder of the PKK, a left-wing Kurdish nationalist organization.

The suspects were allegedly close to the victims and one was possibly the driver of one of the three women, police said.

The murders sparked a flurry of accusations between the Kurdish community and Turkey. While Turkey implied early on that the killings were the results of an internal party feud, supporters of the Kurdish independence movement accused Turkey of trying to derail a nascent peace process between the Turkish government and the PKK.

(Al-Akhbar)