Turkish teacher convicted for cutting schoolgirl’s throat

ANKARA

A teacher in Ankara has been convicted to five months in prison for cutting a 12-year-old schoolgirl’s throat with a box cutter, Turkish media reported March 16 in the latest episode of violence against women in Turkey.

Onur Özbek, a 35-year-old science class teacher at Ülkü Ahmet Durusoy Secondary School in the Turkish capital, received a five-month sentence for “deliberately injuring a person.”  The school’s principal received the same sentence for “not reporting a crime committed by a public servant,” daily Habertürk added.

The lightly injured school girl reportedly told the court that she had no previous disagreement with the teacher. “He was not even teaching us. He just came by as I was sitting at the canteen with my friends and touched my throat with the box cutter, saying he ‘slits throats, not wrists,’” she said.

In his defense, the teacher said he accidentally scarred the schoolgirl’s throat with his nails, not the box cutter, which he admitted to have on him after he had confiscated one during a frisk of students.

Özbek’s lawyer, on the other hand, maintained his client’s innocence by stressing that he was appointed as the deputy principal of another school in Ankara after the incident.

The newspaper also reported that Özbek had received a suspended sentence for injuring a student at a previous school at which he taught in a southeastern Turkish province.

Özbek’s latest conviction has not been suspended, according to the report, which means that he will be sent to prison if the ruling is approved by a higher court following an appeal.

“The Facebook page of the teacher shows that he is a fan of [Valley of the Wolves],” the report added, in reference to a popular Turkish mafia drama. 

One of the most memorable quotes of the show’s protagonist says that “he slits throats,” but never “slits the drill,” a Turkish expression that means “to put on airs.”