Turkish teacher at Armenian school found murdered in his home

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

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An elementary school teacher who taught computer lessons at an Armenian school in Istanbul’s Asian district of Kadıköy was found murdered in his home today.

Friends discovered 40-year-old İlker Şahin dead in his apartment with his throat slit after they came searching for him when he did not show up for work three days in a row since the Orthodox Christmas, which is celebrated on Jan. 7.

Administrators at the private Aramyan Uncuyan Elementary School said Şahin was not an Armenian and they did not consider the murder a “hate crime.”

“He was a great person, always gentle and kind. He was suffering from economic difficulties, this is what he would complain about,” a school manager told the Hürriyet Daily News today in a phone interview.

Şahin had been working for 12 years at the school, whose teaching staff consists of teachers of both Turkish and Armenian origin.

Classroom teachers are Armenian but in-field teachers can be Turkish or Armenian, outside of Turkish language and introduction to social studies classes, according to administrators, who noted that there was no threat against their school and that the incident has not been considered a threat against them.

Şahin’s body was taken to the morgue of the Göztepe Education and Research Hospital for an autopsy.
 
No further details on the murder have been revealed and an investigation continues into the matter.