1983 Turkish embassy attack in Lisbon
| 1983 Turkish embassy attack in Lisbon | |
|---|---|
| Location | Lisbon, Portugal |
| Coordinates | 38°42′26″N 9°12′56″W / 38.70732°N 9.21562°WCoordinates: 38°42′26″N 9°12′56″W / 38.70732°N 9.21562°W |
| Date | 27 July 1983 10:30 a.m. (WEST) |
| Target | Turkish Embassy |
|
Attack type
|
Bombing |
| Weapons | Submachine gun, plastic explosives |
| Deaths | 7: Wife of the embassy's chargé d'affaires, one Portuguese policeman and five militants |
|
Non-fatal injuries
|
2: Son of the embassy's chargé d'affaires and one Portuguese policeman |
| Defenders | One Turkish bodyguard, one Portuguese policeman and some 170 Portuguese riot policemen |
The 1983 Turkish embassy attack was an terrorist attack on the Turkish embassy in Lisbon on 27 July 1983, which resulted in the death of 7 people, including all 5 attackers.
Witnesses said the gunmen arrived at about 10:30 a.m. in two Ford Escorts, a red one that remained out front and a white one that entered the driveway. The car aroused the suspicions of a Portuguese security guard because it had been there the day before. On that occasion, two men who arrived in the car were challenged by the Ambassador's bodyguard. They said they had come for visas, but when asked to produce their passports, they left hurriedly.
Because of this incident, the Turkish Embassy requested extra police protection from the Portuguese authorities, and one additional policeman was stationed on the road outside of the embassy on the day of the attack.
The Turkish bodyguard was alerted by the Portuguese policeman when the white car returned the next day. When the policeman approached it, an armed man opened fire with a submachine gun, wounding the policeman, but the attacker was in turn shot dead by the Turkish bodyguard.
As Portuguese police hurried toward the scene, four other intruders, failing to gain entry to the embassy building, raced into the adjacent ambassador's residence and seized its only occupants, Cahide Mihçioĝlu, 42, the wife of the embassy's chargé d'affaires, and her son Atasay, 17. The gunmen held the hostages in a room around which they planted plastic explosives. They threatened to blow up the building if the police tried to storm it.
A force of some 170 riot policemen surrounded the building, cordoning off the area and hiding behind cars and trees to avoid sporadic gunfire from within the embassy compound. The Portuguese Cabinet under the Prime Minister Mário Soares went into an emergency session during the siege and decided to use for the first time the newly formed, British SAS-trained elite police detachment, the GOE (Grupo de Operações Especiais).
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Wikipedia