Turkish convict 'beats girlfriend on first day of freedom'

ISTANBUL

A Turkish convict has brutally beaten his girlfriend in yet another crime he committed on the first day of freedom, according to the victim.

A young woman, identified as M.Ç., was hospitalized in Istanbul late June 26 with a broken nose and teeth. The victim told the police that she was beaten by her boyfriend, Onur Özbizerdik, Doğan News Agency reported on June 27.

According to her testimony, the woman met Özbizerdik in Istanbul's Nişantaşı neighborhood and the couple then went to a forest in Sarıyer. She reportedly said that the man beat her in the forest by claiming that she was the informer who let the police catch him after one of his crimes.

Having six criminal records in the past, Özbizerdik was released on probation earlier June 26 on charges of firing on a group of people at a restaurant in the Etiler neighborhood where he had gone with his girlfriend on May 30.

Özbizerdik had shot several people in the past, served jail time over a murder in Istanbul, but was always released in the end. He is the grandson of Dündar Kılıç and the son of Alaattin Çakıcı, two well-known figures of Turkey's criminal world.

Alaattin Çakıcı was convicted of instigating the murder of his wife and Dündar Kılıç's daughter in front of their son, Onur Özbizerdik, in 1995.