Ibrahim Tatlises, most beloved and successful of all Turkish singers, has been shot in head

Ibrahim tatlises - Mavi Mavi Remix platonaspower



Unidentified men carrying Kalashnikov rifles were seen escaping in a black car around midnight last Saturday after shooting Turkish folk singer Ibrahim Tatlises in the head.

Tatlises was leaving a TV studio in Istanbul with his spokeswoman, who was also hit. This is the third time Tatlises has been targeted by gunmen.  He was hit in the leg in 1990; and in 1998, he escaped another assassination attempt unharmed.

Doctors at Acibadem hospital in Maslak, Turkey, said a bullet pierced the rear of his skull and passed out through the front.  After a four-hour operation, chief surgeon Caglar Cuhadaroglu related, "His life is still in danger but the situation has improved since he arrived at hospital."

His spokeswoman Cakici was shot in the neck and after operation is now said to be in a stable condition.

Motive is uncertain.
Ibrahim Tatlises is of Kurdish origin, having risen from rags to riches with a devil-may-care braggadocio. He ran for election as an independent candidate for parliament once, but lost.  It was widely expected that he would run again in the elections in June.
Police have launched a hunt for the gunmen.

BBC

Notes:
Has his own restaurant chains, tourism businesses, airline, and TV station; has recorded more than 30 albums and has acted and directed in numerous films; hosts a TV show.
Well known businessman with interests in Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.  Before being discovered he was working at construction sites. He has been involved in construction projects in northern Iraq.

Anatolia News Agency is a private company in New York categorized under Press Service.

"Turkey's Kurds struggle for recognition of their ethnicity, their embattled Kurdish language is making a comeback that is testing Turkish society's tolerance of diversity. The current government, more accepting of minority aspirations, has loosened the language curbs, but this is provoking a backlash from nationalists who fear the country's identity is under threat.

Turkey's 20 percent Kurdish minority has been a traditional target of state discrimination and the more militant among them have waged a 26-year insurgency that killed tens of thousands. The violence has ebbed for now, but ahead of parliamentary elections in June, the nationalists worry that the escalating push for language rights masks a more ambitious goal - autonomy."  Source