Photographs show armed assailant after shooting Russian diplomat

(Image credit: AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

last updated 19 December 2016

Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, was shot and killed Monday by a single assailant at an art opening in the city of Ankara. Karlov was apparently attending a press event at the Cankaya Art Center, when a man dressed in a suit and tie shot him and allegedly shouted "allahu Akbar," the Arabic phrase for "God is the greatest." The man is also believed to have referenced Aleppo, the besieged Syrian city at the center of Russian-Turkish cease-fire negotiations.

Burhan Ozbilici, a photographer for The Associated Press, captured the harrowing visual of the man as he pointed his weapon at the crowd, with Karlov lying prone on the floor next to him: