Doctor suspended from profession over report blaming murdered woman
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The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) has upheld a decision suspending Dr. Mehmet Nuri Aydın from the profession over his opinion report about the 2018 killing of university student Şule Çet.
Çet, 23, lost her life after falling off the 20th floor of a high rise building in the capital city of Ankara. Çağatay Aksu, 34, was found to have sexually assaulted and thrown off the woman from the building and was sentenced to life imprisonment for "murder," "sexual assault," and "false imprisonment." His friend Berk Akand, 34, was sentenced to 18 years and 6 months in prison for aiding Aksu in all these crimes.
In the court verdict, it was stated that Aksu had called Çet to a public house, promising to find a job for the woman who was in a difficult financial situation. He had then applied psychological pressure to the woman to make her come to the plaza and sexually assaulted her there.
The report prepared by Dr. Aydın, a forensic medicine expert, caused outrage after it was included in the case file.
"Under normal circumstances, it is not possible for an adolescent girl or a woman to be raped by force without their consent. If a woman accepts having alcoholic drinks with a man in a secluded place and especially if she goes to his home where he lives alone, it means she has consented to sexual intercourse," the doctor said in his report.
After a complaint by the Çet family's lawyer, the Ankara Medical Chamber opened an investigation against the doctor. In his defense statement, Aydın claimed that his report was not contrary to the facts and deontology. The chamber suspended him from the profession for six months.
Upholding the decision, the TTB noted that a woman accepting to have drinks with a man does not mean she has consented to sexual intercourse and the forensic medicine literature was updated.
What happened?
University student Şule Çet suspiciously lost her life after falling off the 20th floor of a high-rise building in Ankara on May 29, 2018. Defendants Çağatay Aksu and Berk Akand had been facing aggravated life sentence on charges of "murder", "sexual assault" and "false imprisonment".
The final hearing of the lawsuit filed into the suspicious death of Şule Çet was held at the Ankara 31st Heavy Penal Court on December 4, 2019.
Announcing its ruling, the court board ruled that arrested defendant Çağatay Aksu should be sentenced to life imprisonment on charge of "murder," "sexual assault" and "false imprisonment" and to 12 years, 6 months in prison and Berk Akand, the other arrested defendant, should be sentenced to 18 years, 9 months in prison.
The 1st Penal Chamber of the Ankara Regional Court of Justice (court of appeals) upheld the prison sentences on June 17, 2020. (EMK/VK)