Turkish court releases teenager’s three alleged rapists

BALIKESİR – Doğan News Agency

The three suspects denied the accusations and were released by the court pending trial. AA Photo

A Turkish court has released three men who allegedly raped a 16-year-old girl with mental disabilities for 44 days at a house in the northwestern province of Balıkesir.

G.H., who lived in Edremit’s Altınoluk neighborhood, went missing on June 2, prompting her father, 67-year-old İbrahim H., to call the gendarmerie.

Authorities were unable to locate the girl until she called her father roughly three weeks later to say she was living with a woman in İzmir and that she wanted to remain there.

Gendarmerie forces, however, subsequently discovered that she was being confined in a house in Edremit’s Narlı village.

Her alleged abductors, T.S., 38; A.Y., 40; and Ö.Y., 49, were also in the house and detained. Evidence of rape was discovered during a medical examination conducted on the girl.

G.H., however, said she was going to marry A.Y. and did not want to return to her father. The three suspects denied the accusations and were released by the court pending trial, while G.H. was put under state protection.

İbrahim H. said that because his daughter is 76 percent mentally disabled, she was not aware of her actions, adding that he wanted her alleged rapists to be punished.