This beautiful young Turkish femicide activist whose charred remains were found inside a barrel and covered in concrete was still alive when she was set on fire, a court has heard.

Cemal Metin Avci, 32, is currently standing trial for murdering his ex-girlfriend Pinar Gultekin, 28, and disposing of her corpse on the outskirts of the Aegean province of Mugla, Turkey, on 21st July 2020.

It was previously believed that he first allegedly murdered her before breaking her bones so that he could fit her inside the barrel which he then covered in petrol and set on fire before filling it with concrete and disposing of it.

However, a forensic report has revealed during the defendant’s trial that the victim was still alive when she was set on fire after she had had her bones broken.

The lawyer of the victim’s family, named in local media outlet Hurriyet as Yigit Gokcehan Kocoglu, said: “A report from the Forensic Medicine Institute showed once again that Pinar Gultekin was killed with a monstrous feeling and burned alive.”

The victim’s ex-boyfriend faces aggravated life imprisonment and prosecutors have asked that his family members be jailed for five years for helping Avci cover up the crime.

The other defendants in the case, other than the main defendant Cemal Metin Avci, have denied all the charges against them and demanded their acquittal.

The victim first disappeared after leaving her house on 16th July 2020 and after he was arrested, Avci allegedly claimed that he had strangled her to death before burning her body and dumping it in a forest, after having first claimed that the barrel had contained nothing more than “spoiled meat”.

The trial is ongoing.

Pinar Gultekin was a prominent campaigner to stop violence against women in a country where about 40 percent of Turkish women say they have suffered some form of domestic violence in their lives.