Woman Murdering Husband Inflicting Violence Acquitted

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D.K. killing her husband by whom she was systematically exposed to violence acquitted.

Kocaeli 2nd Heavy Penal Court saying the woman practiced her right to self-defense has released her.

Prosecutor Hasan Gündüz in his indictment had said the incident cannot be assessed within the scope of “self-defense and case of necessity” and demanded for jail term from 18 to 24 years.

Panel of Judges headed by Evrim Cansu in justification of acquittal decision made the decision the following reason:

“Even though it is alleged that D.K. willfully murdered her husband Fikret K., it is understood that the murdered imposed verbal and physical violence on the defendant, battered the defendant and the children, she was possessed by fear that it will sustain, she couldn’t dare to escape or apply to official authorities, she was threatened with being murdered multiple times since their marriage started 15 years ago. For these reasons, acquittal of the defendant has been ruled with unanimity”.

“He was hitting with iron club, camp cylinder”

D.K. had explained in her testimony what happened as follows:

“My husband beat me since the beginning of our marriage. I have two daughters of whom one is 10, the other is 12 years old. I endured for 15 years with the hope that it might get better. I wanted to get divorced but I feared he could kill me and my children could go astray.

“When he inflicted violence on me, he usually used iron club, sole, camp cylinder, and anything he could find home to hurt me. He constantly drank alcohol. Everyone knew he continuously cheated on me. He was always threatening me with killing. He was inflicting violence on me every day on his return to home from work. He was beating my children as well. I was begging him to not beat my children but he wasn’t listening to me. He never looked after us for 15 years. We were living on with the help of my children and neighbors”.

“He rested for a while after he beat me up”

“Fikret beat me on the day of the incident. He rested after he got tired of beating me, and the resumed. Then he went out to meet his friends. Girls hid all sharp objects and items he used to beat me with. When Fikret came home, he asked girls ‘Do you have skipping-rope?’ when girls said no, he replied ‘All right, I will get a gun tomorrow and shoot your mother’. Then he started to beat me again. He hit my face with camp cylinder. Photos of my face after the beating are already included in the file.

“He fell asleep after beating me. I looked into my face in the mirror as he was sleeping. I was in unrecognizable shape and it was hurting so bad. I got sad and wept. I thought he would beat me again after waking up and went to the kitchen and took the camp cylinder and knife he was using to beat me. I hit him once with the camp cylinder to make him experience the pain I had, then he started to stand up and said, ‘What are you doing?’. When this happened, I feared that he would stand and kill me and I swung the knife around, then went to children’s room and cried. When I saw him that he wasn’t moving, I covered him, called my brother-in-law and told him what happened”. (CA/ÇT/TK)