Court lessens attacker’s sentence despite ‘no-show’ in court

Ayşegül Usta – ISTANBUL

The prison sentence of a man who violently abused his wife for six years and recently injured her with a firearm has been delayed and lessened by an Istanbul court due to his positive “stance,” though he didn’t appear at the first court hearing.

The 9th Criminal Court of First Instance in Istanbul’s Küçükçekmece district on Nov. 25 lessened and delayed the three-year prison sentence of a man identified as Hakan T., who committed violent acts against his wife Hatice T. for six years, in the first court hearing of the case filed against Hakan T. However, the perpetrator did not attend the hearing.

The court cited Hakan T.’s positive stance and lack of criminal record as grounds to lessen and delay his sentence of more than three years in prison on charges of “deliberate act to injure someone,” “threatening” and “holding unlicensed gun.”

Since wedding, Hakan T. reportedly violently abused Hatice T. in the southeastern province of Gaziantep for six years, later forcing the young woman to move to Istanbul to flee the violence.

Hoping to get divorced from Hakan T., the young woman moved to her parents’ home in Istanbul, but her husband injured her by firing three shots at her ankles on Oct. 11, 2014, after finding her location in the metropolitan. The young woman was hospitalized for three months because of her injuries. 

“My husband kept threatening me ever since I moved to Istanbul, saying, ‘I will kill you if we don’t live together.’ On that day, he shot me three times while running toward me,” said Hatice T. in the first court hearing of the case on Nov. 25, a symbolic date as it is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

“The man’s penalty was lessened for positive stance despite the fact that he never appeared in court. What we understand from this case is being a male is enough to get a penalty lessened,” said Leyla Süren, a lawyer from the We Will Stop Femicides Platform, a non-governmental organization that aims to fight femicide as well as violence against women.