Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash

This man who was sentenced for stabbing his wife but released because of the coronavirus crisis has now been arrested for murdering his nine-year-old daughter.

Muslum Aslan, 33, had been sent to prison in 2019 for stabbing his wife Rukiye Aslan in the city of Gaziantep in the province of the same name in south-eastern Turkey.

However, Aslan was reportedly released last week after Turkey’s parliament approved measures to reduce the sentences of nearly one-third of the country’s inmates in a coronavirus amnesty scheme enacted on 15th April.

Local media report that after his release he went to his wife’s home in Gaziantep and then tried to abscond with their three children.

The mother and father are said to have begun arguing, with the released prisoner then reportedly beating his nine-year-old daughter Ceylan Aslan during the fight.

His wife called the police and he fled the scene before being arrested in a park.

Daughter Ceylan was taken to a hospital but she later died despite the doctors’ best efforts.

Her mother Rukiye, who has reportedly filed for divorce from the suspect, said: “He used violence against my children all the time. He hung my elder daughter from her arms to wall, then battered her with a hose. Leaving Ceylan in blood on the floor, he left my 2 sons in front of our house by taxi and ran away. My daughter is dead. I want this murder to be punished heavily for what he has done.”

The girl’s death has caused outrage online, with women’s rights campaigners slamming the release of domestic violence offenders.

We Will Stop Femicide, an organisation which campaigns against domestic violence, said: “take immediate action to protect women and children from the violence that has been unleashed by the amnesty law.”

The organisation said at least 29 women had been killed between 11th March, when Turkey reported its first case of COVID-19, and the end of March.

Prisoners were released from Turkey’s prisons to try to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the overcrowded facilities, according to reports.

It is unclear if the suspect has been charged.

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