ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - A Turkish court on Friday convicted two brothers for the "honor killing" of their sister and sentenced one to life in prison and the other to more than 11 years behind bars.
Guldunya Toren was shot dead in her hospital bed last year, where she was recovering from an earlier attack by her brothers. The brothers were accused of killing Toren, who was 22, to punish her for having a child out of wedlock. The court on Friday sentenced Irfan Toren to life in prison. His younger brother, identified only as F.T. because he was a minor at the time of the killing, was given a sentence of 11 years and eight months, the Anatolia news agency and other media reported. A third brother is still on the run.
Toren reportedly fled her hometown of Bitlis, in southeast Turkey, for Istanbul to escape her family's wrath after becoming pregnant. She was living at the home of an imam, where she gave birth to a boy, reports said. One of her brothers, pretending to have come to take her to an aunt's home, lured her outside of the house while the second shot her, reports said. Toren escaped that attack with severe injuries. She was in the hospital's intensive care unit when her brothers, pretending to be visitors, shot her in the head, reports said. |