“The terrorist confessed his crime,” Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin told reporters at a news conference, saying the suspect’s fingerprints matched those of the attacker. “He was trained in Afghanistan and can speak four languages. He’s a well-trained terrorist,” added the governor.

Police also confiscated USD 1,97,000, two firearms and clips during the raid. The arrest will come as a relief to Istanbul residents, already on edge after a string of attacks, who had feared for more than a fortnight that a trained killer was on the loose in the city.

Local media published a picture of the detained man with blood on his face and T-shirt, his neck gripped by a policeman. Television images showed him being roughly led away, his head bent low.

The operation to capture the suspected jihadist involved some 2,000 police officers, the Istanbul governor said. The suspect had been on the run for 17 days, after apparently slipping into the night following the attack on the glamorous Reina nightclub on the Bosphorus. But he was eventually discovered in an apartment in the residential Esenyurt district of Istanbul. Initial reports suggested his four-year-old son was with him in the apartment but the governor denied this.