Life sentence demanded in Ugandan woman’s murder

İsmail Saymaz ISTANBUL

A Turkish prosecutor has demanded the court issue a life sentence for a man who admitted to throwing a Ugandan woman to her death from an Istanbul apartment.

The body of 38-year-old Jesca Nankabirwa, a mother of two who worked at a textile factory, was found at a morgue, a week after she left her house on Sept. 6, 2014. Police had revealed that she was killed after being pushed from the window of a fourth-floor apartment in the Fatih neighborhood.

Enver Dursun, who resides at the house, later confessed to the murder in his testimony at the police station, claiming that he had brought Nankabirwa to his house for prostitution under the influence of an illegal drug. “We drank and started to dance. Then I pushed her out,” he said. The suspect retracted his testimony at the prosecutor’s office, claiming that Nankabirwa committed suicide or accidentally fell.

After Hakkı Birsel Korkmaz, the downstairs neighbor, testified that Dursun had confessed to the murder while running down the stairs after the incident, the prosecutor decided to demand a life sentence in his indictment.

The trial of Dursun, who was arrested on Sept. 7, 2014, is scheduled to start April 16 at the 13th Heavy Penal Court in Istanbul.