Cloud of femicide suspicion hangs over woman’s death

ISTANBUL

A woman has lost her life under suspicious circumstances after crashing into the ground from the eighth floor of a 20-story residence in Istanbul’s Ataşehir district, in what many fear could be yet another femicide.

Şeyda Yılmaz, a municipal officer who went to a high-rise building near the municipality hall in Ataşehir on Sept. 17, was found dead on the ground in front of the building on the evening of the same day.

The flat at the high-rise building where Yılmaz, whose body was found without clothes at the scene, belongs to a suspect, identified only by the initials M.A.D., who runs a hookah cafe and an internet news site.

Yılmaz’s relatives claim that the incident was a murder. But the suspect, who was taken into custody, has been released on the condition of judicial control.

“Şeyda was not someone who would commit suicide. She had a problematic marriage with her spouse and they broke up. She was a woman who could stand on her own feet and send her child to school. I definitely don’t think it is a suicide. It’s clearly a murder,” said a friend of Yılmaz’s.

The suspect had moved to the flat where the incident took place last March and was complained to the residence management by his neighbors on the grounds that he was “disturbing people,” according to daily Hürriyet.

In the letter of complaint, the management was requested to take necessary precautions. There are also many photos of the suspect holding a gun on his social media accounts.

The windows of the flat, located on the eighth floor of the building, can only be opened 30-35 centimeters from outside and it is very difficult for a person to jump down from this window, the daily reported.

The incident seems very similar to the high-profile case of the murder of 23-year-old university student Şule Çet, a university student who was found dead after being pushed down 66 meters from the 20th floor of a skyscraper in Ankara’s upscale Çankaya district in 2018.

Violence against women and “honor” killings are deeply rooted and prevalent issues in Turkey.

Social media users reacted to the femicide in the country, where more than 289 women have been killed so far in 2020, according to the We Will Stop Femicides Platform (Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu).