A 28-year-old farmer has been taken into custody after eight people were killed and one seriously wounded in a series of shotgun attacks across three villages in Turkey's Afyonkarahisar province, according to Hürriyet. The suspect, named in Turkish media reports as Arif Sefa Özdemir, was detained on the Eskişehir–Afyonkarahisar highway after fleeing in a vehicle he is alleged to have seized, the newspaper reported on Friday.
Prosecutors have assigned three republic attorneys to the case, which Hürriyet describes as being investigated from multiple angles. The attacks took place in the villages of Yukarıtandır, Ayazini and Kıyır, all in the İhsaniye district of the province.
Why it matters
The killings have shaken a rural corner of western Turkey and left two village schools without teachers. Hürriyet reports that Hilal Mete and Ayşe Sena Demir, both teachers at Yukarıtandır Middle School, were among those killed, and that classes were suspended for a day afterwards. The case has also drawn attention to how a dispute over a farm machinery debt is alleged to have escalated into a chain of shootings along a rural road.
What the suspect told investigators
According to Hürriyet, Özdemir's initial statement describes a dispute that began with the purchase of a combine harvester. He said he bought the machine from a man named Ahmet Uzel for 40,000 euros last year and began working with it around Manisa and İzmir. He told investigators the harvester caught fire in a field in İzmir and was left unusable, after which he and Uzel fell into disagreement.
Per the same account, Uzel contacted him last week asking for 11,000 euros he said was still owed. Özdemir said he believed the outstanding sum was 4,000 euros and that he would pay shortly. Hürriyet reports that the argument over the amount grew, with insults and threats exchanged by phone.
Özdemir is alleged to have invited Uzel to Afyonkarahisar on the day of the killings to make a payment. Uzel reportedly travelled to the city with Bekir Toprak and Noman Toprak. The parties met at the exit of Ayazini village, where, according to the allegation reported by Hürriyet, an argument broke out and Özdemir opened fire with a shotgun he had brought with him, killing the three men.
The newspaper reports that Özdemir then fled and, along his route, targeted other people in order to take their vehicles. Five more people were killed and one was seriously wounded in this way, according to the account in the file. Hürriyet also reports that, during the escape, the suspect abandoned a vehicle that became stuck in mud and took another from a shepherd, telling him, "I'm from this village."
A villager's account of the ambush
Ali İhsan Adatepe, a resident of the same village as the suspect, told Hürriyet what he had heard about how the violence unfolded. He said the two sides had a history of financial disagreement and that the harvesters involved were from Kırşehir, and that the younger man had been beaten by them earlier. He said they later spoke by phone and agreed to meet to settle the debt.
"When they arrived, he had set up an ambush and shot them, as far as we know," Adatepe said, according to Hürriyet. He added that after the first shootings the suspect continued toward the Kıyı area, where he encountered two people on the road and shot them when they would not hand over their car. Adatepe said the suspect then looped through the Bayat and Çıkrık areas and, on the Fethibey road near Gazlıgöl, came across the two women teachers, telling them to get out because he was going to change vehicles. One got out and the other did not, and he shot them as well, Adatepe said.
Habertürk reported that three tradesmen from Kırşehir were among those killed in Afyonkarahisar.
Earlier damage to the suspect's car under scrutiny
Hürriyet reports that investigators are also examining an earlier incident involving the suspect. On 17 March 2026, a car registered 03 ADR 900 and parked outside his home in the Hasan Karaağaç neighbourhood of central Afyonkarahisar was attacked late at night by unidentified people, according to the report. Özdemir went to police and said the vehicle had been badly damaged and written off, and filed a complaint. The newspaper says judicial authorities are looking closely at this detail as potentially relevant to past disputes and to the origins of the killings.
Mehmet Özdemir, a resident of Bozhüyük village who said he has known the suspect since childhood, told Hürriyet that the killings were "a massacre" but suggested the man may have psychological problems. He said he had last seen him about two weeks earlier, with his father, and that the suspect had been working as a crane operator in Sandıklı district and had divorced after marital difficulties. "We only learned about it long afterwards, because we were busy with our work in the village," he said.
The investigation is continuing under the three assigned prosecutors, with the suspect's account and the earlier vehicle attack both part of the file.
