Two people were shot dead in Istanbul on Tuesday while trying to attack a courthouse, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
Posting on social media, Yerlikaya wrote that the man and woman were killed during an “attempt to attack” a security checkpoint at the Caglayan courthouse at 11.46am local time.
Six people were injured in the incident, including three police officers. Caglayan, which is also known as the Istanbul Justice Palace, is a huge court complex in the Kagithane district on the city’s European side.
The two attackers died as police stormed the building, while a prosecutor later died of his injuries.
“I congratulate our heroic police officers. I wish a speedy recovery to our injured,” the minister added.
The attack took place on the day when Turkey was commemorating the anniversary of an earthquake in the country’s south that killed thousands of people.
Yerlikaya later identified the attackers as members of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front, or DHKP/C, a far-left group that is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the EU.
The DHKP/C has been largely inactive in recent years. In March 2015, the group took a prosecutor hostage at the same courthouse, demanding details about the police killing of a teenager during anti-government protests the previous year.
The group also claimed responsibility for a February 2013 suicide bomb attack on the US Embassy in Ankara in which a Turkish security guard was killed and four other people wounded.
In recent years, Turkey has seen other small-scale violent attacks associated with different terror groups.
Last month, a man was shot and killed at an Istanbul church in an attack that was claimed by the Islamic State group.
Two men were later arrested on suspicion of killing Tuncer Cihan, 52, on January 28 at the Santa Maria Church in the Buyukdere neighbourhood. Dozens of suspected IS members and supporters also were detained.
