48 Arrested for Looting, Defrauding Earthquake Survivors in Turkiye
Turkiye had on Saturday vowed to crack down on looters.
The suspects were held in eight different provinces as part of investigations into looting after Monday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the region, news agency Anadolu said.
It later reported that 42 suspects were held for looting in southern Hatay province, while six were arrested over defrauding a victim by telephone in Gaziantep.
The tremor and its aftershocks killed nearly 26,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday announced a three-month state of emergency in the 10 provinces in southeastern Turkey affected by the tremor.
Prosecutors can now detain people for an extra three days from four days previously for looting crimes as part of extended powers under the state of emergency, according to a decree published in the official gazette Saturday.
Erdogan earlier on Saturday vowed Turkey would crack down on looters.
“We’ve announced a state of emergency,” he said during a visit to the quake-hit province of Diyarbakir.
“This means that, from now on, people involved in looting or kidnapping should know that the state’s firm hand is on their backs,” Erdogan said. (The story published from a syndicated feed.)
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