Murder Suspect and Victim's Daughters Testified

Members of the Ankara Women Platform demonstrated against women murders in front of the Ankara 1st High Criminal Court while inside the courthouse the trial on the murder of Ayşe Paşalı was being continued. Paşalı was killed by her former husband.

At the second hearing of the trial on Tuesday (8 January), prime suspect İstikbal Yetkin appeared at court as well as the victim's parents Hüseyin andZeliha Paşalı and her brother Ahmet Paşalı. Prime suspect Yetkin, the divorced husband of Ayşe Paşalı, is facing an aggravated life sentence on charges of "premeditated murder".

Nur Serter and Canan Arıtman, members of parliament for the Republican People's Party (CHP) who had previously applied for joint plaintiff status, attended the hearing. The session was furthermore observed by representatives of the Turkish Women Associations Federation, the Ankara Bar Association Commission on Women Rights, the Woman Solidarity Foundation and members of some bar associations.

At the protest action in front of the courthouse, the Ankara Women Platform announced that 'women murders were not single cases as stated by State Minister Selma Aliye Kavaf. To the contrary, at least three women were being killed by men every day' the platform stated and promised not to remain silent on this issue.

"The male state is digging the graves for women" and "Real justice instead of male justice" were slogans chanted by the protestors. They reminded the fact that Paşalı did not receive protection although she had been threatened by her former husband several times before he killed her on the middle of the street in bold daylight. "This is called a massacre and women murders that became a gender bloodbath are systematic", they criticized.

Defendant Yetkin presented his defence at the Tuesday hearing. He put forward that he became angry when his ex-wife danced with her cousin at a wedding. He quarreled with her and eventually beat her. Yetkin stated that he also became angry when Ayşe Paşalı tried to transfer money she had gained by working at a lawyer's office to her cousin via the internet.

Yetkin said that Paşalı had a trial opened against him on the grounds of beating after they had apparently reconciled their differences. The defendant described how they went to court together and Paşalı told the judge, "I want this person to be punished". Yetkin claimed that he killed Paşalı because she refused to let him see their children.

The court heard the daughters of Paşalı, Burcu and Buse Gül, as witnesses. Kulibay Koçak as a friend of the defendant and witness Hasan Tokatlı who saw Yetkin running away from the scene after the killing also gave their statements.

The victim's daughter Burcu Yetkin recalled that her mother told her what Yetkin had said on the phone, a conversation that was also overheard by her siblings. "This man told my mother on the phone, 'On the day your first child was born, I will cause you such a pain that your mother will suffer great hardship'. The day he killed her was my birthday", Burcu Yetkin testified.

She said that her siblings stayed with İstikbal Yetkin every now and then after the divorce. She claimed that Yetkin showed them sharp objects and that she heard her siblings saying that he told them "With this knife I will kill your mother, with this knife your sister and with this knife your uncle".

The prosecutor demanded to have Yetkin examined at the Forensic Medicine Institute in order to investigate his competence to stand trial. Regarding the applications for joint plaintiff status, he requested to accept Paşalı's family members but decline the other applicants because they "were not harmed directly". The prosecutor also demanded to keep defendant Yetkin in detention.

The plaintiff lawyers opposed a transfer of Yetkin to the Forensic Medicine Institution. However, the court decided to send Yetkin to the Ankara Forensic Medicine Institution in order to ascertain whether he is competent to stand trial. Moreover, it was decreed to continue Yetkin's detention. (EÖ/VK)