title: Özdemir Sabancı
text: Özdemir Sabancı (May 15, 1941 – January 9, 1996) was a Turkish businessman and a second generation member of the Sabancı family.
  
  Biography
  He was born in Adana, Turkey. After finishing the high school at the Tarsus American College in Tarsus, province Mersin, he received his B.A. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), UK. Later, he obtained a master's degree in the same discipline in Switzerland.
  
  Returned to Turkey, he worked in the Sabancı Holding and soon founded and further developed the synthetic fibres producer Sasa, one of the biggest industrial companies of the group. Under his leadership, Sabancı Holding entered into the automotive sector. He established several joint-venture projects with major Japanese companies including production of Mitsubishi coaches and trucks, Komatsu construction equipment, loaders and forklifts. In 1990, he paved the way to produce Toyota cars in Turkey as a consequence of the largest Turkish-Japanese partnership.
  
  In the board of directors of the holding, he was responsible for the Group of Synthetic Fibers, Automotive and Plastics.
  
  Özdemir Sabancı was gunned down on January 9, 1996, in his office in the strongly guarded Sabancı Towers in Levent, Istanbul, along with the general manager of ToyotaSA and a secretary by assassins hired by the leftist armed group DHKP-C. They had been given access to the building by Fehriye Erdal, a female member of DHKP-C, who was an employee at that time. Recently released information has suggested that the assassination of Özdemir Sabancı's assassin Mustafa Duyar was planned by retired general Veli Küçük, who was detained in the Ergenekon investigation.
  
  Özdemir Sabancı was laid to rest at the Adana Asri Cemetery. He was survived by his wife Sevda, his son Demir and his daughter Serra (1975).
  
  See also
   List of assassinated people from Turkey
  
  References
  
  1941 births
  Businesspeople from Adana
  Tarsus American College alumni
  Ozdemir Sabanci
  1996 deaths
  Assassinated Turkish businesspeople
  Deaths by firearm in Turkey
  People murdered in Turkey
  Terrorism deaths in Turkey
  Turkish terrorism victims
  Burials at Adana Asri Cemetery
  1996 murders in Turkey