Turkish secret services
A large gathering took place on a Saturday in Paris, with thousands of people calling for accountability for the assassination of three Kurdish activists a decade ago and demanding answers about the December 23 attack in the French capital that left three more people dead. The demonstration, described as political in tone, stretched from Estación del Norte to Plaza de la República and drew a crowd that police estimated at around 10,000, while organizers claimed at least 25,000 participants.
Participants carried banners bearing photographs of the victims. The figures were hailed as martyrs by supporters, and banners also referenced Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, who is detained in Turkey.
Turkish secret services
Turkish authorities, including the country’s security services, were present in the event through placards, leaflets, and speeches. The march proceeded without incident under a substantial protective presence by police and gendarmes.
Organizers and attendees maintain that Turkish intelligence was behind the armed attack that occurred on the night of January 9-10, 2013, near Gare du Nord in Paris, at the Kurdistan Information Center in the 10th arrondissement. Investigators quickly detained the alleged perpetrator, Omer Guney, a Turkish national who died of cancer in prison in late 2016, just weeks before a hearing that might have clarified whether the triple murder had an international dimension.
The families of the victims pursued the judicial process again in 2017, providing key elements they believed demonstrated Turkish intelligence involvement.
No attribution
From the outset of the investigation, this theory faced charges and did not gain formal attribution. French authorities faced pressure from Kurdish communities to pursue the Ankara link more aggressively. The December 23 attack in front of a Kurdish cultural center, in the same neighborhood near Gare du Nord, heightened calls for accountability and transparency in the investigations.
In this latest incident, the author William Malet was arrested immediately after the attack but released a few days later. Malet, a 69-year-old French national with a prior criminal history, was later remanded on charges related to racist violence, though investigators did not find ties to extremist organizations.
During the protest, banners carried the slogan “Truth and Justice.” Demonstrators also expressed dissatisfaction with the investigation’s progress and criticized the French authorities for permitting Turkish intelligence influence to be perceived as extending into national affairs in this context.