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Suspect admits to Istanbul New Year’s attack

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Istanbul: The captured suspect in the Istanbul New Year’s nightclub shooting which left 39 people dead has admitted to carrying out the attack, Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said Tuesday, adding that his fingerprints matched.


Sahin also said the suspect, of Uzbek origins, was found with $197,000 in cash, weapons, magazines, SIM cards and additional materials.


The brutal shooting took place just after midnight on January 1 in the Reina club and was claimed by IS. The suspect has been at large ever since, amid a massive manhunt.


Pro-government daily Sabah and other Turkish outlets ran a photo of the captured suspect, apparently taken in the moments after he was nabbed.


The person in the photo resembles the man seen in a selfie video that emerged in the days after the attack, which showed the chief suspect walking around central Istanbul.


The suspect — being identified as Abdulkadir Masharipov — was captured alive in a police raid overnight in Esenyurt, on the European side of Istanbul. Several others, foreign nationals, were also taken into custody in the operation.


Police have carried out dozens of raids across the country in the past two weeks and detained 50 people, the governor said, adding that the security forces also reviewed 7,200 hours of camera footage.


It appeared that the suspect had changed locations several times to evade capture.


Police suspect the man of spraying bullets inside the water front Reina nightclub, killing mostly foreigners and wounding 69 in an attack later claimed by IS.


The governor said the latest information gathered makes it clear IS was behind the attack.


The extremist group has been held responsible for a number of bombings in Turkey since 2015, including attacks that targeted foreigners.


However, other than assassinations of Syrian activists in Turkey this is the first attack the group has openly claimed in the country. — dpa


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