MERSIN
A Turkish court has adjourned the murder case of a young Turkish woman whose brutal killing in the southern Mersin province last February rocked Turkey, sparking a national debate on violence against women.
Ozgecan Aslan, the 21-year-old student, was killed while apparently resisting a sexual assault in a minibus on Feb. 13. Her charred body was found two days after she was reported missing.
The court in Mersin ruled Friday that the three defendants in the murder case would continue to stay in prison until the next hearing on September 9.
During the first day of the case’s proceedings, the suspects, who were brought to the local courthouse in the middle of the night to avoid any untoward incident, blamed each other for the young student's death.
Ahmet Suphi Altindoken, 26, who is the main suspect in the case, said that his friend Fatih Gokce told him to not only kill Aslan, but also chop off her hands and burn her body.
Altindoken also claimed that Aslan had insulted him and later attacked him, which turned into a fight in the minibus he had been driving.
“I told her to leave the vehicle but she did not. So I moved to the rear side of it. She attacked me. I responded,” Altindoken claimed.
In return, Gokce blamed Altindoken for the killing and accused him and his father, Necmettin Altindoken, of burning Aslan’s body.
Necmettin Altindoken pleaded that he was not relevant to the case, saying that he knew nothing about the girl’s death.
Aslan’s parents were not present during the court hearing. Instead her uncle represented the family.
A prosecutor has requested aggravated life sentences for the trio for what he described as the “merciless killing of Aslan”.
The defendants began to present their case after the court read out the indictment.
Close to 1,000 lawyers had requested to take part in the trial but only 100 were able to get into the court due to limited space.
Outside the courthouse, various women’s organizations staged protests over Aslan’s killing.
