Turkey: Man electrocutes his wife to death a day after she gives birth to second daughter

(Hurriyet) A man in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır called police to inform them that he was murdering his wife, just a day after she gave birth to her second daughter, according to exchanges from a court hearing into the case on June 4.

V.T., 29, killed his wife reportedly by electrocuting her head while she was sleeping in their home on Jan. 25. M.T., 33, gave birth to her second daughter on Jan. 24 and was discharged from hospital a day later. Asleep due to fatigue, M.T. was killed by her husband, who allegedly used an electricity cable and gloves to protect himself from the voltage, daily Radikal reported.

“I killed someone, I am giving you the address,” V.T. told police, according to the records.

“Whom did you kill?” asked a police officer on the phone.

“I am killing my wife right now,” said V.T.

“Did you kill her or are you killing her?” the operator asked.

“I swear that she has not died yet, but I am killing her if it is halal [permissible by Islam] for me to kill her,” said V.T.

The operator inquired as to V.T.’s problem with his wife, prompting the suspect to say he would speak with officers when they came to the house.

“I am telling you that I killed my wife; you are asking what the problem was,” said the suspect.

“You say you will kill someone then you say you killed someone,” said the operator, implying that the man’s statements were conflicting.

“I closed her month as she is in her death throes now,” said the man.

The operator responded, saying he was sending a police unit to the scene and asked whether he should send an ambulance as well, to which V.T. agreed.

The lawyer of the victim’s family, Elif İpek Türenç, criticized the operator for failing to say anything that might have stopped the man from following through on his plan to commit the murder.

“It is clear that the police officer [on the phone] made no effort to convince the murderer husband not to murder his wife. If a police officer who has a high persuasive capacity and received training on that had been on the phone, she could be alive today,” said Türenç.

V.T. later told police that he was told by an evil power to kill his wife and that he could not resist it.

However, the victim’s family claimed that the husband had planned the murder and wanted to avoid hard time by simulating mental problems, according to daily Hürriyet.

Meanwhile, Burak Göncü, another lawyer for the victim’s family, told the court on June 4 that the husband killed the woman “for giving birth to a girl once again.”

“The accused is a professional murderer. He prepared the cable, screwdriver and gloves beforehand. He waited until 3 a.m. for his wife to fall asleep and gave electricity to her head in cold blood. He waited until the last moment to see whether she would give birth to a girl,” said Göcü during a hearing on June 4 in which the accused was not present.