Top Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci shot dead in Turkey

Two policemen and a journalist were also injured during the clash. “An official investigation has been launched and we have assigned four inspectors to this case”, said a Turkish government official, according to BBC News.

The first possibility, he said, was that, the attack was an “assassination attempt against Tahir Elci”.

The passengers inside the vehicle opened fire, killing one police officer on the spot and injuring two others, one of which succumbed to his injuries later the day at the hospital. It’s a bullet that targeted peace and orphaned an entire people.

U.S. Ambassador John Bass said he was “shocked” and “deeply saddened by the murder of Tahir Elci”, whom he called “a champion for all seeking a future where citizens can live in peace and dignity”.

Last month, Elci had argued that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was not a terrorist organization, during a televised debate program.

The lawyer had caused controversy by saying in an interview the PKK was not a “terrorist” organisation.

His remarks prompted an outcry from Turkish nationalists, and a Turkish prosecutor said he could be sentenced to more than seven years in prison if convicted. But Elci had also been critical of the PKK. “Our scepticism is fair as so many similar sufferings have taken place on our land in this past”, he said at the funeral.

A prominent Kurdish Lawyer and rights activist was shot in the head and killed in Turkey on Saturday.

Tahir Elci, the president of the Bar Association in south-east Diyarbakir province and member of IHD, FIDH member organisation, has been killed by unidentified men in a gun attack following a press meeting on the clashes in Sur.

Reuters TV footage showed plain clothes police repeatedly shooting at a figure running past them towards Elci.

Southeastern Turkey has been rocked by a new wave of unrest that has left several hundred people dead since a two-year-old truce between Ankara and the PKK collapsed in July.

Two British reporters were released but their Iraqi colleague Mohammed Ismael Rasool is still in detention.

Dogan News Agency recorded a video of the incident showing a group of gunmen hiding behind the minaret of a nearby mosque close to where Elci was making his statement.