Turkish TV series inspires Yemeni man to kill five
From online dispatches
Actor Necati Şaşmaz plays the secret agent Polat Alemdar in 'Valley of the Wolves.' Hürriyet photo
A Yemeni man has been executed after killing four men and a woman in a murder spree inspired by the violent Turkish TV series "Kurtlar Vadisi" (The Valley of the Wolves), al-Arabiya reported yesterday.Mohamed al-Ali al-Azab, 31, confessed to his crime, saying he was inspired by the Turkish TV series before his execution, which was carried out in the presence of tribal chieftains.
The incident began with a dispute between al-Azab and an unidentified man in Yemen's Dawran district in the governorate of Dhamar and resulted in the killing of five people, including the other man's mother. After resisting security forces for some time, Azab ran out of ammunition and had to surrender, the report said. He was then sentenced to death in a tribal court.
The sentence was designed to prevent the start of a vendetta that could have claimed more lives, according to the tribal elders.
Tribal executions are common in Dhamar, where people rarely resort to state courts, the report said.
“The Valley of the Wolves” recently inspired a separate murder in the Jordanian city of Mabada in which two teenagers, who were influenced by the series' vigilante protagonist, Polat Alemdar (Necati Şaşmaz), killed a taxi driver last month for refusing to cooperate with them in vigilantism. The incident subsequently caused a riot in Mabada.
The same show also reportedly led a 20-year-old woman in Yemen’s al-Hudaydah city to ask for a divorce from her husband because, in contrast to the character Polat Alemdar, he was not elegant and did not wear jeans. The divorce was prevented through the mediation of relatives.
