On Tuesday (May 25), a court in Turkey reduced the life sentence of a Muslim man to 18 years for the gruesome murder of his 37-year-old wife named Tuba Erkol, reported Duvar English.
The accused has been identified as one Bejir Erol. He was found guilty of killing his wife on August 8, 2019, in Konya in Anatolia province in Turkey. During the crime, Erol mercilessly stabbed his wife 46 times, leading to her death. Despite this, the Konya 4th Heavy Penal Court ruled that his aggravated life sentence be reduced to 18 years on account of ‘unjust provocation’ by his wife and the accused’s ‘good behaviour.’
It must be mentioned that his wife Tubal Erkol had filed a complaint against him for constant violence. Bejir, however, violated the restraining order and murdered Tuba in front of the children, just four days later. The prosecutors had demanded an aggravated life sentence for the Muslim man on account of committing murder with ‘monstrous feelings.’ They had also urged the Court to not make him eligible for sentence reduction.
The judges had initially sentenced the accused to an aggravated life sentence. However, on May 25, the Court reduced his sentence to 18 years and 4 months for ‘unjustified provocation’ and ‘good behaviour’ during the trial process. It must be mentioned that Article 29 of the Turkish Criminal Code says that the sentence of a convict can be reduced if the crime was committed in a ‘state of anger or severe distress caused by the unjust act.’
While the notion of ‘unjust provocation’ is arbitrary and left to the discretion of the judges, convicted criminals reportedly make several excuses to seek a reduced sentence and influence the decision of the Judiciary. Similarly, the sentence awarded to a convict can also be reduced in Turkey on account of his/her ‘good behaviour’. Like ‘unjust provocation’, the interpretation of good behaviour is also left at the judges’ discretion. Employing both these arbitrary rules, the Court reduced Bejir Erol’s aggravated life sentence.