Fehriye Erdal

Who is Fehriye Erdal?

Fehriye Erdal is a female political activist from Turkey. She was one of the three DHKP-C members allegedly involved in the assassination of a Turkish businessman, Özdemir Sabancı and two of his employees on 9 January 1996 in Istanbul, Turkey. In 2008, however, she was acquitted of this charge.

In 1999, she was captured in Belgium. At the time of her arrest, she held a fake passport under the name Nese Yildirim. Belgian officials were able to identify her only after her fingerprints were taken.

In 2006, a couple of hours before her sentence was announced and in spite of being under 24-hour surveillance of the Belgian Secret Service, she managed to flee. She was to be sentenced to a four-year imprisonment in Belgium for the crimes she had committed in that country. She would later be handed over to Turkey in order to be tried for her involvement in terrorist activities within the borders of the Turkish Republic.

Since her escape, Interpol has issued a red bulletin for Fehriye Erdal sending a message to its 186 member countries that she is to be captured and returned to Belgium. Although there have been reports that she has been seen in Cyprus and Jordan, there is no solid information on her whereabouts.