Supreme Court overturns acquittal: husband receives aggravated life sentence for killing his wife Sevgi Gevşek
Turkey’s Court of Cassation has issued a landmark decision in a five‑year legal battle over the suspicious death of 27‑year‑old Sevgi Gevşek from Kahramanmaraş. Her husband, 34‑year‑old Durdu Gevşek, who was previously acquitted, has now been found guilty of “intentional killing of a spouse” and sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment after the high court overturned the original verdict.
A young mother found critically injured on the street
The incident dates back to 17 November 2021 in the Sakarya neighbourhood of Kahramanmaraş. Residents found Sevgi Gevşek, mother of one, lying injured in the street. She was rushed by ambulance to hospital, where doctors discovered she had been stabbed and that her liver was severely damaged.
Due to the seriousness of her condition, Sevgi was transferred to the Malatya Turgut Özal Medical Center for an urgent liver transplant. Despite the operation, she could not be saved and died on 23 November 2021, six days after being found.
Husband arrested, then released at the first hearing
Following Sevgi’s death, her husband Durdu Gevşek was taken into custody as the main suspect. After the investigation, the Kahramanmaraş 1st High Criminal Court accepted an indictment seeking aggravated life imprisonment for Durdu on the charge of “intentional killing.” His father, identified as İ.G., and a friend, Ş.A., were charged with “destroying, concealing or altering evidence of a crime,” facing up to five years in prison each.
Durdu remained in detention for about four months, but was released at the very first hearing. Throughout the proceedings, he denied all accusations.
“She stabbed herself,” claims the husband
In his defense, Durdu claimed that after a marital dispute, Sevgi allegedly stabbed herself. He further stated that he had sent his friend Ş.A. to the hospital to say that the incident was accidental, arguing that he wanted to avoid the situation being recorded as a criminal case and “ending up at the police station again.”
This claim of self‑inflicted injury became one of the central points of contention in the trial. The narrative of a young mother stabbing herself right after an argument was closely scrutinized by both the court and the forensic experts.
Forensic report: both suicide and homicide possible
During the trial, a report from the Forensic Medicine Institute was submitted. The report concluded that there was one stab wound caused by a sharp object on Sevgi’s body and stated that the wound could technically have been inflicted by Sevgi herself – with either her right or left hand – but could just as well have been inflicted by another person using either hand.
In other words, the forensic opinion did not definitively exclude either suicide or homicide. This lack of a clear-cut scientific conclusion placed greater importance on witness statements, behavior before and after the incident, and overall consistency of the suspects’ accounts.
Initial acquittal due to “insufficient concrete evidence”
On 9 June 2022, the trial court delivered its verdict. By a majority decision, the Kahramanmaraş 1st High Criminal Court acquitted Durdu Gevşek, his father İ.G., and his friend Ş.A.
The court stated that there was no concrete, unequivocal evidence free from reasonable doubt to prove that the defendants had committed the offences attributed to them. On this basis, and leaning on the forensic report’s ambiguity, the panel decided it could not convict.
However, one of the judges dissented. In his written opinion, he emphasized that it was illogical and contrary to the ordinary course of life for a person who truly wanted to commit suicide to repeatedly tell those who found her that she did not want to die. He also drew attention to the fact that the knife used in the incident was cleaned afterward, and that the defendants failed to give a plausible, logically consistent explanation for this.
Family appeals to the Supreme Court
Unconvinced by the acquittal, Sevgi Gevşek’s family challenged the decision before the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay). The case was examined by the 1st Criminal Chamber of the high court.
After reviewing the file, the chamber overturned the acquittal by a majority vote. The reasoning of the Court of Cassation focused heavily on the husband’s behavior and the victim’s statements in her final moments.
Supreme Court: suicide scenario contradicts evidence and common sense
In its detailed reasoning, the 1st Criminal Chamber pointed out that although Durdu claimed he saw his wife wounded, he did not immediately call the emergency number 112. Instead, he phoned relatives and friends to summon them to the scene.
The court further stressed that, according to the file, Sevgi had fled to the street screaming for help after the stabbing that followed an argument with her husband. It noted that a person intent on taking their own life would not be expected to run outside calling for help “as if trying to escape death,” but would usually stay out of sight.
Witnesses testified that Sevgi collapsed on the street and told the people who rushed to her side that she had been stabbed and that she did not want to die. Taking these elements together, the chamber concluded that the suicide narrative did not fit the facts or the logic of ordinary human behavior.
The high court declared that, in light of these established facts, Durdu, as the victim’s husband, should have been convicted of qualified intentional homicide instead of being acquitted. It ruled that the lower court’s assessment was erroneous and therefore unlawful.
Retrial and final conviction
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, the case was sent back to the local court and Durdu Gevşek was tried again. At the new hearing, Durdu appeared as an unarrested defendant, alongside the lawyers of both parties and Sevgi’s parents, Rüstem and Gül Nihal Yeşil.
Durdu again rejected all accusations. He repeated that he had not called an ambulance because he had a disability in both legs, claiming he could barely walk and had to drag himself outside holding on to the door. According to his account, a neighbour told him that an ambulance had already been called, which is why he did not dial emergency services himself.
He defended his decision to send his friend Ş.A. to characterize the event as an accident by saying he wanted to avoid another criminal incident record. Durdu stated: “If someone stabbed me, I would not tell random people on the street; I would tell the police of my state. I was in Georgia at the time; if I had wanted, I would not even have come back. My conscience is clear.”
Despite these assertions, the court, now bound by the Supreme Court’s legal interpretation and its evaluation of the evidence, found him guilty. Durdu Gevşek was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for “intentional killing of a spouse.” With the pronouncement of the verdict, a detention order was issued, and he was taken into custody in the courtroom.
“We have waited five years for this moment”
Sevgi Gevşek’s parents, who attended nearly every hearing over the years, expressed that they had been waiting for this decision for five years. For them, the Supreme Court’s intervention and the final conviction represented not only the punishment of the perpetrator but also an official recognition that their daughter did not take her own life.
Their statements underline how, in cases of suspicious deaths of women, families often have to fight a long legal battle to have the courts fully examine all circumstances and not uncritically accept suicide or accident scenarios.
Why this ruling is seen as precedent‑setting
Legal experts note that the decision carries significant weight for future cases involving suspicious deaths in domestic settings. The Court of Cassation’s reasoning emphasized:
– That the victim’s behavior immediately before and after the incident (running outside, shouting for help) must be evaluated in light of common life experience.
– That verbal statements by the victim to bystanders in her final moments (“I was stabbed, I don’t want to die”) are crucial evidence.
– That a defendant’s failure to immediately seek professional medical help (not calling emergency services) can be interpreted as a powerful indicator of intent.
– That attempts to manipulate how the incident is recorded (pressure to call it an “accident”) may reflect consciousness of guilt.
By stressing these points, the high court signaled that merely pointing to a theoretical possibility of suicide or accident is not enough to secure an acquittal if the broader context and conduct contradict that narrative.
The broader context: deaths of women and “suicide” claims
In many countries, including Turkey, suspicious deaths of women are sometimes quickly labeled as suicides or accidents, especially when they occur at home or in the presence of partners or close relatives. Human rights advocates and women’s organizations have long argued that such cases demand particularly careful scrutiny.
The Gevşek case demonstrates how crucial it is for courts to analyze the entire chain of events: prior conflicts, immediate reactions, the handling of the crime scene, witness statements, and the psychological profile of both victim and suspect. The Supreme Court’s emphasis on the “ordinary course of life” acts as a reminder that legal assessments must be grounded in realistic expectations of human behavior, not only in narrow technical interpretations of forensic reports.
The role of forensic reports – and their limits
The forensic opinion in this case did not definitively identify the perpetrator. Instead, it simply stated that the stab wound could physically have been self‑inflicted or inflicted by another person. Such neutral wording is common when wound trajectories and positions do not clearly rule out either possibility.
However, the Gevşek ruling underlines that, in the absence of a categorical forensic finding, courts must not stop at “it could be suicide.” They must weigh all other pieces of evidence: the cleaning of the knife, contradictions in statements, the existence of prior arguments, the victim’s last words, and the suspect’s actions in the critical minutes after the injury.
This approach prevents the misuse of ambiguous forensic language as a shield for impunity, especially in cases where power imbalances and domestic violence may be in play.
Emergency response as a clue to intent
One of the key elements that swayed the Supreme Court was the husband’s failure to immediately call emergency services. In violent incidents inside the home, how quickly and through which channels help is sought often becomes a decisive piece of circumstantial evidence.
A person who genuinely wishes to save a loved one will normally act quickly and contact professional emergency services. Calling relatives or friends first, delaying the involvement of authorities, or trying to shape how an incident is reported can suggest an attempt to control the narrative rather than to save a life. The court clearly read Durdu Gevşek’s choice to call acquaintances instead of 112 in this light.
A painful but instructive legal journey
From Sevgi’s death in November 2021 to the aggravated life sentence handed down after the Supreme Court’s intervention, nearly five years have passed. During that time, her family endured an initial acquittal, a lengthy appeal, and a retrial – a process that reflects both the shortcomings and the corrective mechanisms of the justice system.
On one hand, the first‑instance court’s majority decision to acquit, despite strong dissent from one of its own members, shows how easily reasonable doubt can be interpreted in favor of defendants in the absence of direct eyewitnesses. On the other hand, the Court of Cassation’s decision to overturn that verdict demonstrates the importance of multi‑tier judicial review in reaching a more comprehensive assessment of the truth.
For Sevgi’s relatives, the final judgment does not restore what they have lost, but it closes a legal chapter and sets a reference point for other families facing similar tragedies.
A message to would‑be perpetrators
Beyond its immediate impact on the parties, the ruling sends a broader message: domestic violence and the killing of spouses cannot easily be disguised as accidents or suicides. Attempts to wash away evidence, manipulate testimony, or delay professional help will be closely examined in court.
By upgrading the case from acquittal to aggravated life imprisonment, the justice system has drawn a strict line: when the overall picture clearly points to intentional killing, courts are expected to recognize it as such, even if there is no eyewitness who saw the fatal blow.
In this sense, the Gevşek decision stands as a stark warning to potential perpetrators and a sign of hope for those who demand accountability in cases of violence against women.