Hakan Aysal walked free from a high-security Turkish prison after serving six years of an aggravated life sentence for pushing his pregnant wife, Semra Aysal, off a cliff in Butterfly Valley.
The Supreme Court’s Criminal General Assembly ordered his release as it reviews an appeal on the lifetime sentence handed down for the June 2018 death, according to reporting in the New York Post.
The 45-year-old was serving time for the premeditated killing of his 32-year-old wife, who was seven months pregnant with the couple’s child when she died at the scenic beauty spot near the city of Muğla in southwestern Turkey.
Court Examines Insurance Policy
The Sun reported that the policy was valued at £7,000 and that the payout application was blocked following the fatal plunge. Prosecutors accused Aysal of luring his wife to the picturesque location under the guise of a romantic holiday, while Aysal claimed the insurance policy had been taken out because the couple shared an interest in extreme sports.
During the legal proceedings, Aysal maintained his innocence and claimed he never pushed his wife, saying instead that she had vanished when he turned his back for a second.
“When I turned back, my wife was not there,” Aysal told the court. “I looked down the cliff and ran around looking for her. I did not push my wife.”
Aysal can be seen holding his wife’s hand as he leads her to the beauty spot in Turkey.
Supreme Court Orders Release
Defense lawyers and Supreme Court Chief Prosecutor Ömer Taş argued that the case suffered from a lack of sufficient, convincing evidence to support the conviction, and concerns were raised over the circumstances surrounding the insurance policy that had become central to the prosecution’s case.
Although the presiding judge had disagreed with the verdict and argued that Aysal should be acquitted, the conviction was initially upheld until Turkey’s Supreme Court Criminal General Assembly ordered his release to bring his time behind bars to an end.
The dramatic decision does not mean Aysal has been cleared of the murder, as the case is subject to further legal examination.
“The decision is extremely worrying, not only for this case but also in terms of the evaluation of evidence in femicide cases and the debates surrounding impunity,” lawyer Hediye Gökçe Baykal told Cumhuriyet.
“A woman and her seven-month-old unborn baby lost their lives. The defendant, who received an aggravated life sentence, is now free,” the women’s wing of the New Party, Turkey’s social democratic political faction, said, according to the New York Post, questioning how accountability will be provided for the deaths.
