A Turkish court recently released its Considered Decision explaining its grounds for reducing the sentence of the murderer of Pınar Gültekin.
The prison sentence of the man who was convicted of brutally killing the 27-year-old university student Pınar Gültekin was reduced from life imprisonment to 23 years in prison, which, according to legal experts, meant that he would be granted conditional release after 14 years.
The court said in its Considered Decision that Cemal Metin Avcı, a 32-year-old married man with one child, burned Gültekin’s body, ‘not with monstrous impulses or to further torment her, but to get rid of the corpse.’
The judges also said:
“Taking into consideration that Pınar Gültekin had threatened Cemal Metin Avcı, saying she would tell his wife and friends about their extra marital affair, that she had similarly extorted cash from him, and that accordingly Avcı committed this crime while in a rage against her, the conditions for the application of the rules of unjust provocation were fulfilled.”
Cemal Metin Avcı, who had confessed to killing Pınar Gültekin, strangled her, then while she was allegedly still alive, burned her body in a barrel, first with wood, then with coal, and finally with petrol, poured concrete over her burnt remains, and dumped the barrel in a river.
None of his claims, including that he had had an affair with Gültekin, or that she had assaulted him with a knife and he had killed her in self-defence, were backed with any forensic or other evidence.
