Widow of policeman killed in accident criticizes officials

KAYSERİ – Doğan News Agency

Esma Kılıç (C), the wife of police officer Abdullah Kılıç, 32, held up her two-year-old daughter and told the official: 'Tell this ‘act of God’ to my child.' AA photo

During a funeral in Kayseri on March 11 for the four police officers killed in a bus accident while escorting an election rally on March 10, the widow of one of the officers harshly reacted to a Parliament official’s condolences.

Parliament Deputy Head Sadık Yakut had told the relatives of the police officers that the accident was “an act of God” and asked for forgiveness for the error during the funeral ceremony in Kayseri. However, Esma Kılıç, the wife of police officer Abdullah Kılıç, 32, held up her two-year-old daughter and said: “Tell this ‘act of God’ to my child.”

Police officers Kılıç, Resul Erdal Aydemir (33) and Ömer Aktaş (31) were killed in the accident, while Gökhan Emre Örül, a policeman wounded in the same accident, died in hospital on March 11.
Esma Kılıç, a nurse in Kayseri, criticized officials for sending the policemen from Kayseri to Kırşehir in bad weather.

“We are here. Where [are the officials] who sent my husband there on that rainy day. I do not give my blessings to you,” Kılıç said.

Some 21 policemen were wounded in the Central Anatolian province of Kırşehir when the bus in which they were travelling from Kayseri to Ankara overturned early March 10.  

The policemen were to reportedly take a flight from Ankara to the eastern province of Muş in order to serve during an election rally set to be held by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the city.   
The accident happened at approximately 12:30 a.m. when the bus lost control and careened through the dividing strip near the Mucur district due to rainy weather and slippery road conditions on the highway between Kayseri and Ankara.

The wounded policemen were taken to Kırşehir Ahi Evran University Training and Research Hospital and their treatment has been ongoing. A ceremony was set to be held for the three policemen from the Kayseri Police Department.