British citizen arrested in an operation against Turkish terrorist group DHKP-C
Stephan Shak Kacynski, a British citizen of Polish origin, was arrested on Saturday in Turkey, as part of an operation against the far-left terrorist organisation Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C).
The DHKP-C was listed among the 12 active terrorist organizations in Turkey as of 2007 according to the Turkish Counter-Terrorism and Operations Department of Directorate General for Security. The US and the European Union also included the group in the list of terrorist organisations, after it carried out a number of assassinations and bomb attacks.
A source from Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that a British national with that name was arrested by the police and added that he had been offered consular assistance, Reuters reports.
Kacynski could be a spy working for Germany's Federal Intelligence Service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), according to a report by the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah on Monday. However, no official confirmation was given.
The arrest occurred after the group took the Turkish prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz as a hostage last Tuesday. The two captors who held him died when police forces stormed the building, while the prosecutor later died at the hospital as a consequence of his wounds.