Suspect in dorm kidnapping incident arrested in northern Turkey

ZONGULDAK

A court in the northern province of Zonguldak has arrested a man who kidnapped a resident of a public girl’s dorm on Oct. 7 following protests by residents who claimed their security was not being ensured at the facility.

After being freed from detention, 39-year-old suspect Birol Ç. was re-detained and subsequently arrested by a court for kidnapping his girlfriend, S.G., from the dorm in the Kozlu district of Zonguldak.

The kidnapping and a similar incident a few days later touched off protests by residents who complained about security concerns and authorities’ lack of action in meeting their demands for security.

In his testimony, the suspect denied the charges of kidnapping, saying: “Everything I did was out of love. But I realized that what I did was wrong.”

The suspect entered the dorm after confronting security personnel with a gun and went to the second floor, abducting S.G. at gunpoint. The suspect was caught afterwards when friends of S.G. called the police.  

Another alleged abduction incident from the same dormitory, just a couple of days after the first one, prompted around 250 students at the housing facility of 1,600 to stage a protest in front of their building on the night of Oct. 10.  

Büşra Serçeoğlu, one of the protesters, said the authorities had done nothing to address their security concerns at the dorm. 

“We are not safe here. Our dorm president said, ‘I wonder what she did to get kidnapped.’ Again, as always, women are the ones who are deemed guilty. Those responsible have not done what they are supposed to do,” Serçeoğlu said. 

“Now the police say, ‘We’re here for you.’ But two girls were kidnapped in a week. This road [leading to the dormitory] is not safe at all. They [the dorm administration] said police vehicles would be stationed in front of the dorm every hour, but this never happened. We don’t have any security in this dorm,” she added.

After the protest, which ended when Zonguldak provincial police head Osman Ak arrived at the scene and conducted separate talks with the residents, authorities placed surveillance cameras and lamps in the area while also beefing up the police presence in front of the building.