Story By: Feza Uzay, Sub-Editor: Joe Golder, Agency:  Newsflash

A man who shot his wife in a taxi on the way home from a divorce hearing left her dying beside the road as he and the driver carried on with their journey as if nothing had happened, a court has heard.

Shocked passers-by called emergency services after spotting the badly injured Elif Aydin, 25, lying on the road, and she was rushed to hospital but could not be saved.

Her husband, Huseyin Omer Aydin, 31, has now appeared in court over the incident that happened in the intersection of Cali Mahallesi in the north-western Turkish city of Bursa.

He claims that the divorce hearing had been uneventful and he thought nothing of it when his estranged wife had agreed to share a taxi with him, but once they got into the vehicle, he claimed she had started an argument with him about the gun and he had handed her the magazine containing the bullets.

But he said she had tried to take the gun away from him as well, and had attacked him with pepper spray, and that because there was still a bullet in the chamber, when the trigger was pulled it had gone off and she had been shot.

He said she had got out of the taxi when it slowed down and he was unaware that she had been fatally hit.

The prosecution says that there was no way they could not have realised that the woman was mortally wounded and instead they simply drove off.

She was taken to the Uludag University Medical Faculty Hospital by an ambulance, but could not be saved.

The court heard that the man had a history of violence which was the reason for the divorce, and that he had also been jailed for violence against her.

The driver of the taxi in which the incident took place, named as 51-year-old Murat K., said: “After the shooting, I took the man back to where I picked him up, and I then called the owner of the taxi. I apologize to the family of the victim, I should have called the police.”

He said he had wanted to go to the police but the man had insisted on simply being delivered back to where he had been picked up and he had decided not to argue.

Bursa Women’s Platform and Women’s Council members made a press statement in front of the Justice Palace for Elif Aydin’s case about the casual way women are murdered in Turkey with nobody seeming to do anything about it.

They said: “The taxi driver and Huseyin Omer Aydin continued on their way as if nothing had happened. We call on everyone to show more solidarity with Elif Aydin and all the women killed. Our struggle against patriarchal murders will continue until women are not subjected to violence.”

An aggravated life sentence was sought for the accused Huseyin Omer Aydin on charges of negligent manslaughter.

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