Court to hear witnesses cited by LGBTI+ groups in 2008 homophobic murder case

Photo: Tuğçe Yılmaz/bianet

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

The 36th hearing of the case of Ahmet Yıldız, who was killed in 2008 in a homophobic hate murder was held today (October 6) at the İstanbul Anadolu 5th Heavy Penal Court.

Lawyer Yağmur Birdal said in the hearing that the father was seen in Zaxo, Iraq, during the investigation stage and that a red notice was issued after the request made by LGBTI+ organizations.

She added that the person could not be found despite the red notice and that none of their requests were being accepted by the court, showing this as a justification.

The attorney requested that if a person could not be caught for 11 years despite a red notice, all requests had to be accepted for the trial to advance further.

The request by the LGBTI+ associations for calling witnesses was accepted in the hearing. The next hearing will be held on February 28, 2023.

Once more, justice was not secured in the case where Yıldız's father is charged with deliberate murder of a descendant in the first degree, violating the firearms law, and willful injury.

Ahmet Yıldız’ın duruşmasında 2019 yılından beri ilk kez tanıkların dinlenmesine karar verildi. @HeviLgbt pic.twitter.com/OCa2GCW9xN

— Tuğçe Yılmaz (@tucyil) October 6, 2022

What happened?

Twenty-six-year-old university student Ahmet Yıldız had started receiving death threats after disclosing to his family that he was homosexual and he had filed a criminal complaint against his family about three months before he was killed.

He was shot dead on July 15, 2008, by his father Yahya Yıldız. Another person was injured. Yıldız, who was killed by five shots, was a final year undergraduate student in the Physics Department of Marmara University.

When his body was not collected by his family he was buried in a cemetery of the nameless.

The case started on September 8, 2009, after a complaint by the person injured but it was not concluded despite the 36 hearings held. A red notice was issued for the runaway suspect Yahya Yıldız but he has not been caught up to date. (TY/ED/EMK/EP/VK)