Mafia wars hit upscale Istanbul streets, 3 dead

Two separate targeted hits in one day in upscale Istanbul neighborhoods left three people dead late Dec. 24, just days after a bodyguard was killed in front of a bar in Istanbul's Nişantaşı neighborhood.

Interior Minister Efkan Ala said there was no concrete data in their hands that would allow them to say if the two hits were related but that they were working on that possibility.

Ali Ekber Akgün was killed when two men jumped out of a car traveling behind him and shot him in his Bentley as he waited at a red light in Sarıyer's İstinye neighborhood.

Akgün was reportedly involved in real estate, while police are investigating allegations that he was involved in the drug trade and a murder in the past in the Netherlands.

"We were sitting together when we heard a serious of gunshots one after the other," said an eyewitness to Akgün's shooting. "When we saw someone injured inside, I broke the windows with a friend and checked to see whether the driver was alive or not. We waited for the ambulance, but it came too late."

Two more people were shot dead with Kalashnikovs on Nişantaşı's busy Vali Konağı Avenue late Dec. 24 while on foot.  

Vedat Şahin, the borther of known mafia boss Sedat Şahin, was killed in the hail of bullets along with a friend, Ferdi Topal. A third person, Enver Aydın, was seriously injured in the attack, which occurred at about 10 p.m.

Hüseyin Saral, the head of a gang that was at war with Sedat Şahin's criminal organization, was found dead in Italy in 2005. Şahin and some of his accomplices were apprehended in the same year in connection with the crime.

Earlier, on Dec. 20, 37-year-old bouncer Vedat Topçu was gunned down at around 6 a.m. at his post outside a nightclub that is...