Turkey said it has thwarted a plot orchestrated by Iran to kill an Israeli-Turkish businessman based in Istanbul, Turkish local media reported on Friday.
Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) discovered a network of nine people who has been working as “Iran assassination team” plotting to kill Yair Geller, the Sabah daily reported.
Geller has businesses in the aviation-defence industry as well as in technology and software, the daily added.
The assassination was supposed to be in retaliation for the killing of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020 which Iran blamed on Israel, Sabah claimed.
Istanbul police launched an operation to detain the nine men “a few days ago”, the newspaper said, but the leader of the network is apparently in Iran.
Eight have been arrested on charges including “setting up an organisation to commit a crime” and “being a member of a group set up to commit crime”, it added.
The men had been watched by MIT agents as they followed Geller at home and at work, collecting information to prepare the assassination, Sabah said.
MIT also met with Israel’s Mossad spy agency in Ankara to inform them of the plot’s next step to kill Geller. He was taken to a “safe house” shortly after, it added.
