She Stabbed Hubby, Blamed Doctors' Neglect for His Death

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Hürriyet Newspaper, 6 April 2019)


                  Erdoğan bey shudda stuck to water.

In the Canik neighborhood of Samsun, Erdoğan Altun came home
drunk on 13 November 2014 and began beating his daughters. His
wife of 20 years, Bedriye hanım, intervened so Erdoğan began beating
her, too.  Bedriye hanım then grabbed a knife from the kitchen and
stabbed Erdoğan in the stomach, quickly informing police afterwards.

Erdoğan was treated at a hospital and released. But his condition
worsened overnight and the next day Bedriye hanım brought
Erdoğan back to the hospital, where he died.  As a result of Erdoğan's
death, Bedriye hanım was arrested for murder and served 1.5 years
of a 5 year 5 month sentence before being released in February 2016.

However, Bedriye hanım asserted that hospital doctors B.T. (37) and
Yılmaz K. (65) we responsible for Erdoğan's death because they
neglected his treatment.  A report from the Judicial Medical Office
supported this view and the doctors were tried, but both were acquitted.


                    Bedriye hanım heading to law school.

Bedriye hanım appealed and the higher court ruled that Dr. Yılmaz K.
should have kept Erdoğan in the hospital for 24 hours.  Nevertheless,
the court found that "this mistake was not the cause of death" but
decided that Dr. Yılmaz K. should be tried again for neglect.  He
was convicted and sentenced to 3 years 3 months in jail.  Since Dr.
Yılmaz K. had no prior criminal record, though, the sentence was
reduced to 2 months 15 days.  This jail time was then postponed
indefinitely (!).

As for Bedriye hanım, she explained that "I stabbed Erdoğan to
scare him and protect myself and my children.  If the doctor had
treated him properly he wouldn't have died.  We were expecting
the doctor to get a more severe sentence, because my husband died,
I went to prison and our entire lives changed."