Istanbul teacher sentenced to over 87 years in jail for sexually abusing seven students

Aziz Özen – ISTANBUL

An Istanbul court has sentenced an elementary school teacher to 87 years and six months in jail on charges of sexually abusing seven girls between 2013 and 2016. 

The sexually abused girls were the perpetrator’s students from grades one to four.

The suspect was their classroom teacher at the time in a school in Istanbul’s Üsküdar neighborhood.

The girls are now aged 11 and 12.

The incident was revealed when one girl told her mother: “I am very mad that my teacher behaved in a way that I did not like.”

Upon her daughter’s statement, the mother filed a complaint against the teacher, leading to police taking the testimonies of other sexually abused girls in the class.

The teacher was arrested in February 2017.

A prosecutor’s office prepared the indictment into him based on the accusations of 10 girls.

In the final decision trial, the Anatolian 8th High Criminal Court found the defendant guilty of sexually abusing seven girls, while there was not enough evidence he sexually abused the other girls.

One of the judges on the court board issued a statement opposing the ruling, saying there was not “concrete and believable” evidence in the indictment file.

Meanwhile, the defendant denied the charges against him when asked to give his final words in court. He said the charges against him were groundless.