ANKARA, June 19. /TASS/. One of the organizers of the assassination of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov is living in the US state of Texas, the Sabah newspaper reported on Monday, citing its own sources.

According to the newspaper, the man’s name is Temel Alsancak, also know by his alias, Kadir. He is a member of the Gulenist Terror Group (FETO), which is outlawed in Turkey. The terrorist group is run by Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, who also now lives in the US, and is considered the ringleader of the attempted coup d'etat in Turkey in 2016. The newspaper says that Alsancak lives in a $1.2 million mansion in Dallas. He had previously set up four front companies, registering them under the names of his relatives. The purpose of setting up these companies was to obtain US work visas and other documents for other FETO members. He subsequently closed two of these companies.

The newspaper also reports that several members of Turkey's official agencies, including the police and national intelligence, were involved in the plan to assassinate the Russian diplomat. Three days before the planned assassination, a FETO member received orders to publish information about the planned actions on the Swedish-based Nordic Monitor website, as well as on Twitter. The organizers sought to blame the murder on jihadist groups and completely undermine relations between Turkey and Russia, up to and including war between the countries.

Karlov was assassinated on December 19, 2016, while making a speech at a photo exhibition in Ankara. The attacker — police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas — was killed on site. The Russian Foreign Ministry classified the incident as a terror attack, while Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal probe over charges of international terrorism. The diplomat was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia.

On March 9, 2021, an Ankara court sentenced five defendants in Karlov’s case to life sentences, eight defendants to between 5 and 15 years in prison, and acquitted six people. The court also opened standalone cases into nine fugitive defendants.