Meryem Ö. born 1973
Strangled: 4 January 2005
Residence: Berlin-Neukölln
Origin: Turkey / Kurds
Children: 5
Perpetrator: Meryem's former partner Mahmut S. (33 years old at the time of the crime), father of their 5 children.
Meryem Ö. and Mahmut S. (both Kurds) live in an imam marriage. This religious marriage is not officially recognized in Germany and Turkey. It is not known why the two were not officially married via civil marriage. They have five children together.
No happy day would have passed in Meryem's life, her sister Suna later says. For years, Meryem is abused and humiliated by her Kurdish husband.
At last she gets a lawyer to ban him from entering the apartment. He does not comply and on January 4, 2005, forcibly enters the apartment and strangles her (possibly under the influence of alcohol).
Afterwards he meets his brother in the street and tells him that he killed his wife. He throws him the key and disappears. Presumably straight to the airport.
Mahmut flees to Bursa in northwest Turkey, a hundred kilometers from Istanbul. There he is arrested in a hotel four days after the crime. The hotel had routinely passed on his name to the authorities. Mahmut testified that he killed his wife because she no longer loved him.