DIYARBAKIR: A leading Kurdish lawyer was  shot dead on Saturday in southeast Turkey after unknown attackers opened  fire on a gathering in the mainly Kurdish province of Diyarbakir,  triggering a shootout with police, hospital sources and witnesses said.  According to witnesses, unknown assailants opened fire on Elci and 40  other activists as they were giving a press statement near a mosque in  Diyarbakir’s Sur district. The police immediately returned fire, they  said. Tahir Elci, head of the bar in Diyarbakir who had been detained in  October for alleged “terrorist propaganda”, died of gunshot wounds to  the head, hospital sources told AFP. Three policemen and an unknown  number of journalists were wounded in the clashes, the witnesses said.