Abdulkadir Masharipov (born 1982) was a member of the Islamic State from Uzbekistan. On New Year's Day of 2017, he carried out the 2017 Istanbul nightclub attack, killing 39 people and injuring 79.
Biography[]
Abdulkadir Masharipov was born in the Uzbek SSR, Soviet Union in 1982 to a Sunni Muslim family, and he later became a radical Islamist. Masharipov was influenced by the Islamic State's propaganda, and Masharipov decided to join a cell of IS-affiliated Uzbeks in Konya, Turkey on 15 December 2016. Taking on the alias of "Abu Muhammad al-Khorasani", Masharipov received weapons and logistical support from the Konya cell, and he planned to attack the popular Reina nightclub in the Besiktas district of Istanbul, the capital of Turkey, as clubgoers celebrated New Year's Day. Masharipov gunned down 109 people, killing 39, and he managed to escape the club after changing into civilian clothes. Masharipov was believed to have headed to Syria to take part in the main fighting, the battles of the Syrian Civil War. On 16 January 2017, however, he was arrested while staying at a friend's apartment in the Esenyurt district of Istanbul. On 7 September 2020, he was sentenced to life in prison plus 1,368 years.