Raped, brutally murdered, body of missing student found in Turkey

Twenty-one-year-old university student Azra Gulendam Haytaoglu, who has been missing since 28 July, was found dead in a forest area in Turkey’s Mediterranean province of Antalya yesterday.

According to DHA, 48-year-old civil engineer and real estate agent Mustafa Ayhan, who was taken into custody, confessed to sexually assaulting then killing her.

During the interrogations, Ayhan said that after he raped Haytaoglu, he strangled her in the bathroom, killed her, cut her body into five pieces, placed it in a suitcase and buried it in a forest area in the Kepez district of Antalya.

Condemning the crime, the Minister of Family and Social Services, Derya Yanik, wrote on Twitter: “May God have mercy on Azra Gulendam Haytaoglu, who was killed inhumanly; my condolences to her grieving family. We will be there for them at every step they need. We are following the case so that the murderer receives the heaviest possible sentence.”

Turkish women’s rights groups held a protest in Istanbul’s Kadikoy yesterday calling for justice for Haytaoglu and protesting against the country’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty to combat violence against women.

READ: ‘Imagine a father killing his daughter without blinking’, Turkish girl predicts her death