ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Turkey’s Supreme Court has accepted an appeal allowing the parents and business partner of a man who confessed to brutally murdering a Kurdish woman in Turkey to also be indicted, her family’s lawyer said on Sunday.
Pinar Gultekin, 27, originally from the Kurdish-populated province of Bitlis, was studying economics in Mugla before going missing in July last year. Her body was found five days later.
Cemal Metin Avci, who is believed to be her former partner, confessed to the murder.
Avci’s parents and business partner are to be tried on charges of “destroying, hiding and tampering with evidence,” Gultekin’s family lawyer Rezan Epozdemir told Halk TV on Sunday.
“We did think that the family was involved in the crime since the beginning,” Epozdemir added, claiming that security footage, DNA tests and examination of the crime scene showed that the parents were involved in tampering with evidence.
"I went there and looked at the cameras. There was not only one person there,” Gultekin’s mother told Bianet outlet last year.
Many officials, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, condemned the murder.
Gultekin’s death sparked nationwide outrage in Turkey and human rights groups warned against the rise in femicide, which continues to be a problem.
Ankara officially withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty that prevents and combats violence against women earlier this month.
Erdogan said that he withdrew from the treaty because of its "incompatibility" with "local values,” but that the fight to stop violence against women didn't start with the Istanbul Convention, and it will not end with the country's departure from it.
A Turkish monitoring group, the We Will Stop Femicide Platform, reported 17 femicides and 20 suspicious deaths of women in May.
