TURKEY tr-diplomacy

Eight Turks, one US citizen shot dead in Israeli attack to aid ship, report says

ISTANBUL - Agence France-Presse | 6/3/2010 12:00:00 AM |

Eight Turks and a US national of Turkish origin were among the nine dead in an Israeli raid on Gaza-bound aid ships, Anatolia news agency reported. (UPDATED)

Eight Turks and a U.S. national of Turkish origin were killed in an Israeli raid on Gaza-bound aid ships, Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

The nationalities of the dead were determined after post-mortem examinations at a forensic institute in Istanbul, where the bodies were flown early Thursday, Anatolia said.

The nine activists who died in an Israeli raid on aid ships bound for Gaza were shot dead, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Forensic experts in Istanbul found bullet marks on the bodies of all the victims.

The experts said the exact circumstances of the activists' deaths would become clear in a balistics examination that would take about a month to complete.

An official from Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or İHH, NGO that organized the flotilla to Gaza, identified the U.S. citizen as 19-year-old Furkan Doğan, originally from the central Turkish town of Kayseri. Doğan had four bullet wounds to the head and one to the chest, Ömer Yağmur of İHH, told Anatolia.

The 19 wounded activists deported from Israel were also suffering from gun wounds, the chief doctor of the hospital in Ankara treating them said.

"The patients generally have serious injuries to their chests, abdomens and limbs. What we have is mostly gun wounds," Metin Doğan said in televised remarks.