The new case of a so-called honor killing made headlines in Turkey not only because of the horrific nature of the crime but because the family got together to decide that the father would murder his daughter.

Police said they had arrested the father and 13 relatives who took part in the decision to murder Nuran Halitoglu.

She had been abducted in March while on her way to a supermarket in Avcilar, a working-class district of Istanbul.

Her kidnapper, a man in his 20s, repeatedly raped her before she escaped from the house where she had been held for four days.

The family, which comes from Van in eastern Turkey, then held a meeting and ordered the father, Mehmet, and his 17-year-old son, Alaat tin, to kill the girl in order to lift what they saw as a stain on their honor, the reports said.

The daily Milliyet said Nuran was strangled in a relative's house and her body was buried in a forest.

The Japan Times Weekly: May 8, 2004
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