Abused woman cleared in husband murder case

SAKARYA - Doğan News Agency

23-year-old Gülfidan Kuşçuoğlu has been subjected to violent attacks by her spouse and bore bruise marks on her body, according to reports. DHA photo

A court in the northwestern province of Sakarya has ruled to acquit a woman who killed her abusive husband by choking him with a cable on Nov. 5, 2011, on the grounds that the murder constituted an act of self-defense.

The prosecution had requested up to 24 years in prison for 23-year-old Gülfidan Kuşçuoğlu, who killed her 24-year-old husband Uğur Kuşçuoğlu in the Beşköprü neighborhood of Sakarya’s Adapazarı district, some eight months after they had run away from their parents to get married.

Medical reports have confirmed that Gülfidan Kuşçuoğlu had been subjected to violent attacks by her spouse and bore bruise marks on her body.

Uğur Kuşçuoğlu reportedly began to abuse his wife three months after they were married and would not even allow her to look out of the window, according to the indictment.

On the day of the incident, Uğur Kuşçuoğlu began to curse at and beat Gülfidan Kuşçuoğlu because she had looked at a naked man in a movie they had been watching in their bedroom, the indictment said.

That same night Uğur Kuşçuoğlu removed his wife’s clothes and began to beat her with an iron rod used to stir the stove’s fire. Gülfidan Kuşçuoğlu then made a sudden attempt to strangle her husband with a cable she wound around his neck.

The court ruled that Gülfidan Kuşçuoğlu had committed murder within the terms stipulated in the 25th article of the Turkish Penal Code which pertains to matters of self-defense and ruled against sentencing her.

“No punishment is exacted on the offender for acts committed under an imperative to fend off an unjustified attack that is directed toward either the offender’s or someone else’s right and which is certain to repeat, in a manner that is proportional to the attack under the circumstances of the moment,” the 25th article of the Turkish Penal Code said.