Retired colonel shot in Istanbul had covered identity

A retired colonel, who was shot in Istanbul's central Be?ikta? district with his wife on June 7, was reportedly using a fake ID and was the commander who led a military operation in which 10 student members of an illegal revolutionary group were killed in 1972.

Retired colonel Çetin O?uz, 67, and his wife Asuman O?uz, 66, were shot by unknown attackers who escaped on a motorbike near the Istanbul regional Gendarmerie Command in Be?ikta?. The two were immediately taken to hospital, with Çetin O?uz reportedly being in a critical condition. He was shot in his stomach soon after he and his wife cast their votes in Turkey's general election on June 7.

The police have opened an investigation to find the two unidentified suspects, while the motorbike used in the attack was found near Be?ikta?'s Abbasa?a Park. 

Soon after the attacked colonel was identified as Çetin O?uz, it emerged that his real ID was actually Fehmi Alt?nbilek, daily Sözcü reported on June 7.

Alt?nbilek was the commander who headed the military operation in Istanbul's K?z?ldere neighborhood (today known as Ataköy) in which revolutionary student leader Mahir Çayan and nine others were killed on March 27, 1972. 

Çayan was the leader of the People's Liberation Party-Front of Turkey (THKP-C), an illegal group born of the leftist student movements of the 1960s and 70s. Çayan was an iconic figure for Turkish leftist movements, escaping prison after being sentenced in 1971. Ertu?rul Kürkçü, who is still an active politician in Turkey, was the only survivor of the clash in which Çayan and nine other friends were killed.

Alt?nbilek also headed another operation in the Çemi?gezek district of Tunceli province on Jan. 24, 1973, in which ?brahim Kaypakkaya was...