As the mystery surrounding the murder of an 8-year-old girl continues to dominate Turkey’s agenda, a forensic report has shed some light on the tragedy, revealing that the little girl, whose body was found 19 days after she went missing, was strangled to death on the day of her disappearance, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
The report, drafted by the İstanbul Council of Forensic Medicine, has been sent to the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating the murder.
The body of Narin Güran was found on September 8 in a sack in a river in Diyarbakır, around one kilometer from the village of Tavşantepe where she lived with her family.
The fact that it took authorities so long to locate Narin’s body and that it was found in a previously searched river have led to speculation about whether there was a deliberate attempt not to locate the girl’s body.
As of now, 12 people including the girl’s mother and one of her brothers have been arrested among more than 20 people who were detained in connection to the murder.
One of the suspects is Salim Güran, the girl’s uncle and also the mukhtar of the village, who was arrested on September 3 on suspicion of murder and deprivation of liberty after DNA samples taken from his car matched DNA on the girl’s clothes.
According to the forensic report, Narin died due to a lack of oxygen after her mouth and nose were covered and pressure was exerted on her neck.
The medical examiners found no other signs of traumatic injury that could have led to the girl’s death.
The report also showed that the girl’s left leg was ripped off her body by animals as her body was left lying in the river for so many days.
The doctors said with the samples taken from the girl’s body, they could not determine whether the girl had suffered sexual abuse.
There were fears that the autopsy would not reveal all the circumstances of Narin’s death since the girl’s body had already begun to decompose when it was found, due to high temperatures and because it was submerged in the water for such a long time.
There have been protests across the country, with calls on the government to expose the perpetrators and the motive behind the murder.
Due to the lack of any progress in the investigation, despite 12 people held in pretrial detention for days, a large number of people and some opposition parties have begun to voice concerns that the government might be covering up the murder.
Turkish media outlets, which have been running speculative stories about the motive and perpetrators of the murder for days, have focused on an alleged affair between the girl’s mother and uncle as the reason for the murder, presumably because the girl witnessed it.
The mother in her statement to the prosecutor denied having an affair with her brother-in-law but could not explain the two phone calls she made to him on the day of the murder.