Suspect
Enver Dursun has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of
39-year-old Jesca Nankabirwa, a Ugandan mother of two who worked in an
Istanbul textile factory, although the court reduced the man’s sentence
from life to 25 years after he displayed “good conduct.”
Nankabirwa’s
body was found at a morgue, a week after she left her house on Sept. 6,
2014. Police said she was killed after being pushed from the window of a
fourth-floor apartment in the Fatih district. Dursun’s lawyer, Mehmet Şentürk, said Nankabirwa jumped out of the window to escape.
Şentürk alleged that Nankabirwa went to Dursun’s house as a sex worker, after which they began arguing.
Dursun
attempted to call the police after they physically attacked each other,
but Nankabirwa jumped out of the window to escape from the police in
order to avoid deportation, Şentürk alleged.
Dursun’s lawyer’s
statements raised eyebrows in the courtroom, while the lawyers for the
plaintiffs also voiced their criticism at the lawyer’s racist comments.
“They
are black. Black people are strong. They are like that in boxing,
basketball. My client could not throw her down the window alone. There
would need to be at least two or three people from the neighborhood in
order to throw her,” said Şentürk, prompting the people in the courtroom
to say, “Don’t be racist.”
“If the court doesn’t agree, then we want a reduction in the sentence due to unjust provocation,” added the lawyer.
Dursun
confessed to the murder in his testimony at a police station in
February 2015, claiming that he had brought Nankabirwa to his house for
prostitution under the influence of an illegal drug.
“We drank
and started to dance. Then I pushed her out,” he said. The suspect later
retracted his testimony at the prosecutor’s office, claiming that
Nankabirwa committed suicide or fell accidentally.
Asked whether
he had something to say in court before the trial ended, Dursun said he
would have thrown her from somewhere else in the house if he had wanted
to.
“I’m the victim here. If I had wanted to push her from the
window, I wouldn’t do it from that spot. We have a balcony at the back
of the house; I would have pushed her from there,” Dursun said.
