Islamic cult leader sentenced to prison for ‘successive sexual abuse’

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Having sexually abused a 12-year-old child and introduced himself as the "Uşşaki Islamic Cult Leader Fatih Nurullah," Eyüp Fatih Ş. has been sentenced to 10 years, 5 months in prison without any reduction.

At his final hearing, the defendant referred to the 4th Judicial Package, which is expected to be submitted to the Parliament. Indicating that "strong suspicion will be sought in crimes of children's sexual abuse" when the related package is introduced, defendant Ş. demanded his acquittal.

NOTE: According to the Motion Foreseeing Amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure (CMK) and Some Laws, which is known as the "4th Judicial Package" in short, "a person shall be arrested for catalogue crimes in the event of strong suspicion based on concrete evidence." Moreover, "in ruling for arrest, continuation of arrest or rejecting the requests for release, the judge or court rulings shall cite evidence indicating that judicial control measures, in addition to the current conditions, will fall short in the concrete case."

'He is acquitted of two charges'

Following the final hearing of the trial, lawyer Mine Rana Kahramanoğlu from the Saadet Teacher Association for Struggle Against Child Abuse (UCİM) has underlined that the ruling is not satisfying:

"The defendant has been given this sentence on charge of successive sexual abuse. But we made defense as to charge of aggravated sexual abuse; there was also false imprisonment. He locked the child in a room. The child had a statement about this. However, he has been acquitted of these two charges. For this reason, this ruling was not what we hoped.

"As no sentence has been given on these two charges, we will appeal against the ruling. But the defendant has been convicted while he is currently arrested. It will be deducted from his prison sentence.

"On the other side, the defendant referred to the 4th Judicial Package expected to be submitted to the Parliament and said that the Package was good news for him and 'aggrieved' people like him. He said that he served time in prison for no reason, he would be released pending trial in such a case and it was good news. He stated that he was expecting this.

"There is false imprisonment. The board should have given this ruling; the ruling was given in a bit of a haste. The lawyers of the opposing party didn't make a proper defense; it was like they were prepared for this. We defended the victim under this pressure, but this ruling has not satisfied us."

What happened?

Odatv news website reported that Fatih Nurullah, who abused a child, was arrested. Afterwards, some tapped phone calls revealed the speech between Nurullah and the father of the abused child. In those records, Nurullah was confessing the crime, partly telling father F.A. what he did and trying to persuade him so that the incident could be covered up.

In a second voice record, F.A. shouts at Fatih Nurullah, asking him, "What did you do to my child?" Confessing the crime and partly telling what he did, he recommended F.A. that he kill his child and disguise it as suicide. (AÖ/SD)