Revealed: Off-duty officer, 22, who assassinated the Russian ambassador 22, came from a secular family and was accused of taking part in the failed coup against President Erdogan (photos)

The assassin of the Russian ambassador to Turkey appears to be from a secular family and was accused of taking part in the failed coup against President Erdogan in July, it has emerged.

Questions are being raised as to how 22-year-old trained riot policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas came to shoot dead Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov at a gallery opening in Ankara on Monday.

Altintas was filmed as he blasted the ambassador from behind with his semi-automatic handgun during the launch of a photographic expedition.

The women in Altintas's family do not wear the hijab, Turkish media report.

An online listing remains showing him as a serving policeman on an official database. Altintas was reportedly one of some 8,000 fired from the police as a result of an investigation into the July 'coup' against President Erdogan.