Turkey: Erdogan urges government to abolish private security

The government should replace all private security guards with police forces, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said April 1, a day after a hostage rampage where a prosecutor and his two captors were killed, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

“I will propose to my friends [the government] that they abolish private security guards altogether [from public institutions]. Most of them are already retired,” Erdogan told daily Hürriyet in an interview aboard a plane returning from Bucharest to Istanbul.

“Private security organization should be reconsidered. The government will most probably discuss this issue. I believe it would be a historic decision. Maybe I could say this as a piece of advice. Turkey has a Police Department. It should establish protection teams in courthouses. Private security forces should be abolished. It is a question of who founded these security guard firms in many places, how and for which reasons. This should be examined,” said Erdoğan.

Two militants with alleged links to the outlawed far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), Safak Yayla and Bahtiyar Doğruyol, took Mehmet Selim Kiraz, the prosecutor in the controversial case of the killing of Gezi victim Berkin Elvan, hostage on March 31. Kiraz succumbed to injuries incurred during the long hostage drama while police forces also killed Yayla and Doğruyol after riddling them with bullets.