The Turkish Court of Cassation issued a landmark scandalous decision in the case of a woman’s murder, upholding a court ruling that reduced the killer’s sentence, on the grounds that the murder was presumed not to have been premeditated but was in fact a crime of passion as a result of the woman rejecting the murderer’s marriage proposals.
Hatice Kaçmaz (33), a musician and a mother of one, was killed in September 2014 in a park in the Turkish capital Ankara, by Orhan Munis, a man whom she knew and who is known to have proposed to her many times. The man came to the park carrying an 8-inch blade on the day of incident, and stabbed her to death.
The killer had defended himself in court saying that he had been carrying the knife as ‘precaution’, and had acted on ‘instant rage’ when he proposed and was rejected. He also claimed that he was on his way to purchase a sacrificial animal for the approaching feast of sacrifice, though he had on his person a mere 7 Turkish liras (a little more than 2 euros).
Orhan Munis has a criminal record for murdering his brother, and had previously served a prison sentence of 13 years for that murder. His sentence had been reduced as the court had been convinced by his statement that he had brandished the knife to intimidate his brother, not to kill him, and that he had killed him by accident.
A similar court decision was reached in the case of the murder of Hatice Kaçmaz, the judges concluding that the murder had not been premeditated.
The decision said:
“The accused, who wished to marry the victim, took a blade with him in a rage caused by rejection and the emotional influence and psychological state induced by extreme passion, and he stabbed the victim as a result of that rage.”
The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the ruling of the lower court was a majority decision of 14 votes to 5, and will enable the killer once again to serve a relatively short prison sentence, despite the prosecutor’s strong objections to the lower court ruling.
Tolerance of femicide
The tolerance of femicide by officials in Turkey takes many forms and may even amount to siding with the killer on occasion.
A recently released film on the murder of a woman was banned, by the mayor of the city where the killer is officially a resident, although there are no legal grounds for such a ban.
