Honour killing story

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Funda Sacin
born 1983
Strangled: July 16, 2001
Residence: Rottenburg/Ergoldsbach (Landshut district)
Origin: Turkey
Children: none
Perpetrator: her father Mikdat Sacin, aged 41 at the time of the crime.
Funda is 18 years old, has a high school diploma and is training to be a hairdresser. Her father Mikdat is a religious but unremarkable man. He promises his daughter to a 24-year-old cousin from Ankara. Funda, however, refuses to marry him. Instead, she loves another 20-year-old Turk from Geisenhausen, whom she secretly marries in a mosque in Munich. She then flees from her family in July 2001 (it is unclear, but it could be from Ergoldsbach, where her parents live, to Rottenburg). It is possible that she is pregnant.

Through the intervention of her husband, the father contacts her and pretends to give his blessing to the marriage. Funda is told to return home. She is pleased that her father now agrees to accept their love. On the evening of her return, he drives her to a wooded area. There, the father strangles his own daughter. When she is already dead, he still stabs her (if he thought she was pregnant, he may have wanted to make sure he killed the child too).

He buries the body in the woods. He then flees in the car and tells his wife Hatice via cell phone that he killed their 18-year-old daughter and where the body can be found.

After the crime, Funda's husband gets police protection because he too is threatened. The murdered woman had a sister and two brothers. A rumor says that after the crime one of the brothers stated that he would have done the same thing.

The Bavarian police considered Mikdat a fugitive for 8 years. In the spring of 2009, he was arrested in Turkey. Presumably he felt safe.

What is an honour killing?

An honour killing is a murder in the name of honour. If a brother murders his sister to restore family honour, it is an honour killing. According to activists, the most common reasons for honour killings are as the victim:

Questions about honour killings

  • refuses to cooperate in an arranged marriage.

  • wants to end the relationship.

  • was the victim of rape or sexual assault.

  • was accused of having a sexual relationship outside of marriage.

Human rights activists believe that 100,000 honour killings are carried out every year, most of which are not reported to the authorities and some are even deliberately covered up by the authorities themselves, for example because the perpetrators are good friends with local policemen, officials or politicians. Violence against girls and women remains a serious problem in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Serbia and Turkey.

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