ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The body of a Turkish-American activist was received with a solemn ceremony at the airport in Istanbul on Friday, arriving a week after she was shot in the head by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank.
The Istanbul governor and other officials lined up in front of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi’s coffin, wrapped in the red-and-white Turkish flag, with police in formal uniforms standing guard at each end.
An imam led prayers at the ceremony at Istanbul Airport after her body was flown overnight via Baku from Tel Aviv. Eygi, 26, was killed as she took part in a protest against settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
After the ceremony, Eygi’s body was sent to Izmir by plane, the governor’s office told Reuters. The funeral was set to be held on Saturday in the Turkish Aegean coastal city of Didim, where her family lives.
Israel has acknowledged that its troops shot Eygi, a Turkish-American educated in Washington State, but says they did so unintentionally during a demonstration turning violent.
Washington has said the killing was unacceptable. Ankara says it will request international arrest warrants for those to blame for what it calls an intentional killing.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office is investigating “those responsible for the martyrdom and murder of our sister Aysenur Ezgi Eygi”.
(Reporting by Burcu Karakas; Editing by Daren Butler and Peter Graff)
