JINHA

HATAY – The prosecutor in the case of Ahmet Karaca, who killed his wife in Turkey's Hatay province, requested a sentence reduction based on the suspect's claims that he was the "real victim" because his wife had disagreed with him. Women's groups protested the decision outside the Hatay courthouse yesterday.

Ahmet Karaca killed his 27-year-old wife Fatma Karaca by cutting her throat on October 10, 2014 in Hatay province's district of Dörtyol. The prosecutor in the case has now requested a sentence reduction for the killer, who testified in court yesterday claiming that he was the "real victim" because his wife had disagreed with him. The Hatay Bar Association Women's Legal Committee and the platform "We Will Stop Women Homicides" were denied permission to enter the courtroom. Instead, the groups held a protest outside the courthouse carrying photographs of Fatma.

"They say women's violence; the real violence was what I experienced as a man," said Ahmet, testifying in court yesterday. He said the "violence" was the fact that his wife often went to stay with her mother and would not stay at home when he wanted, saying "they were oppressing me."

"On the day it happened, we argued again. To scare her, I got a knife from my father's house. My goal was to scare her, but then I lost control."

Fatma's mother Ayşe Helli testified that the killer was lying and had constantly persecuted her daughter. Fatma's older sister Arzu testified that Fatma had tried to get a divorce in 2009, but that the court had rejected her request.

"The incompatibilities were the kind of arguments that can occur in every family between spouses, between couples," said the family's lawyer, Şükran Dağ Cabir. "In this document, they have been presented as reasons for a sentence reduction for unjust provocation. In fact, these are, at most, reasons for divorce. But they're not reasons to sacrifice a human life." He said the prosecutor's call for a sentence reduction amounted to a reward for the killing.

Fatma's mother, speaking outside the courthouse, cried as she said, "They're all lying. My child did no wrong. He came and got her and cut her [throat]."

(fk/cm)