Ankara, Dec 01: Syria has handed over to turkey 22 people suspected of involvement in deadly suicide attacks in Istanbul, Anatolian news agency reported, a day after another suspect was charged with seeking to topple the state. The suspects fled Turkey after the November bombings in which 61 people died, the state-run agency yesterday said, quoting a statement from the Ankara security services.

Several of those detained were believed to have links with Azad Ekinci, who investigators suspect was a key planner of the attacks, the agency added. Ekinci is believed to have escaped from Turkey.

Turkey has so far charged 21 people on various counts in connection with the attacks on two Istanbul synagogues in which 29 people died on November 15 and the offices of British-based bank HSBC and the British consulate in which 32 people died five days later.

Turkish authorities on Saturday charged an unnamed man with seeking to overthrow Turkey's constitutional order by force, which carries a life sentence on conviction. They accused him of ordering the bombing of the Beth Israel synagogue before trying to flee to Iran.


Police have named 29-year-old Mesut Cabuk as the man who actually blew himself up in carrying out the Beth Israel attack. Istanbul's city Governor Muammer Guler told a news conference in Istanbul yesterday. Police had also identified a man they believed to be the suicide bomber in the attack on the HSBC Bank building.


Guler said Turkish security services had not yet established whether Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network was involved in the attacks.

A number of suspects had fled to Syria, with which Turkey has had turbulent diplomatic relations in recent years.

In the late 1990s, Ankara accused its southern neighbour of harbouring Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who was arrested in Kenya in 1999, brought to Turkey for trial and sentenced to death --later commuted to life imprisonment -- for rebel activities.

Bureau Report