Turkey slaps travel ban on ex-MI6 officer's wife

ISTANBUL

Turkish authorities have slapped a travel ban on the wife of a former British intelligence officer who was found dead in Istanbul, judicial sources said on Nov. 14.

Swedish citizen Emma Hedvig Christina Winberg, 39, has testified twice in the case, saying her husband told her he wanted to commit suicide 15 days before his death. He was getting treatment for a stress disorder, she said.

Istanbul police examined the couple’s electronics devices, according to Demirören News Agency.

Meanwhile according to residents in the neighborhood, a street vendor had been selling tissue paper for a year in the street where Le Mesurier’s house was located, daily Hürriyet reports.

Aydın Tunç, who works at a restaurant in Karaköy, said that tissue paper seller used to wait at the corner of the street everyday around 8 a.m. But the mysterious man stopped showing up one to two weeks before the incident.

“He used to come here, whether it is summer or winter. He even used to wait in the rain. Once I quipped if he is a spy or not,” Tunç said. “That guy always suspected me. The street is not a very busy place. People used to pass, but it is not suitable to sell tissue paper. He can go sell it at the ferry pier or sell it at the door of the mosque. The man caught my attention.”

Tunç described the mysterious man as white-skinned, colored-eyed and bearded.

Le Mesurier was the founder of a Syrian civil defense agency and awarded an Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth in 2016.

He was found dead in the street near his apartment on Nov. 11, and his body was sent to London after an autopsy.