Former Derik District Governor Muhammed Fatih Safitürk, who was appointed as a trustee to the Derik Municipality in Mardin in September, died in a hospital on Friday after he was wounded in a bomb attack on his office carried out by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Wednesday.
Three people including Safitürk were injured in an explosion near the residence of the Derik district governor on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Mardin Governor’s Office.
According to the statement, PKK terrorists attacked the residence of the district governor with homemade explosives, injuring three people including Safitürk.
The injured were taken to nearby hospitals, while security measures in the area were tightened.
Dozens of trustees have recently been appointed by the Interior Ministry to mostly pro-Kurdish municipalities in Turkey’s Southeast, replacing the elected mayors and municipal council members. The development attracted widespread criticism from the region and Western countries.
In a statement to a Kurdish TV station last month, senior PKK operative Murat Karayılan threatened trustees appointed to municipalities in the Southeast, saying that “from now on these people will not be forgiven.”
Karayılan, who back in June threatened to target trustees if they were appointed, reiterated his threat, arguing that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been using the trustees as its “counter-organization.
