Vanguard, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2012—51
Turkish woman who beheaded alleged rapist awaits trial A
WOMAN in Turkey is awaiting trial after beheading a man who she says raped her repeatedly for months and is the father of her unborn child. Her lawyer says the woman killed the man to protect her honour. Nevin Yildirim, a 26year-old mother of two, lives in a small village in southwestern Turkey. She said the man, Nurettin Gider, began the attacks a few days after her husband left in January for a seasonal job in another town, according to a source close to the case. Yildirim said Gider threatened her with a gun and said he would kill her children, aged two and six, if she made any noise, according to the source. That was the first of repeated rapes over the next eight months, the source said. At one point, Yildirim said, Gider sneaked into her house while she was asleep and took pictures of her. One of the pictures shows her pregnant body. Gider threatened to publish the pictures if she didn’t obey him, the source said. In small villages like hers, honour is held above all else, and women carry the burden of honour for their families. Pictures like those would have been devastating for Yildirim and her family and could have posed a danger. On August 28, at least five months pregnant by a man who she said continued to rape her, Yildirim said she decided she had had enough. Gider was climbing up the back wall of her house. “I knew he was going to rape me again,” she said at her preliminary hearing August 30. She said she grabbed her father-in-law’s rifle that
was hanging on the wall and shot him. He tried to draw his gun and she fired again. She said: “I chased him. He fell on the ground. He started cussing. I shot his sexual organ this time. He became quiet. I knew he was dead. I then cut his head off.” Witnesses described Yildirim walking into the village square, carrying the man’s head by his hair, blood dripping on the ground. “Don’t talk behind my back, don’t play with my honour,” Yildirim said to the men sitting in the coffee house on the square. “Here is the head of the man who played with my honour.” She threw Gider’s head to the ground, the witnesses said. Video from Turkish broadcaster DHA, which arrived on the scene before the authorities,
showed Gider’s head on the ground. Witnesses called authorities and Yildirim was arrested. Gider was 35 and the father of two children, 15 and nine. He was married to an aunt of Yildirim’s husband. Yildirim told her legal representative she regrets what happened, the source said. “I thought of reporting him to military police and to the district attorney, but this was going to mark me as a scorned woman,” Yildirim said, according to the source. “Since I was going to get a bad reputation I decided to clean my honour and acted on killing him. I thought of suicide a lot but couldn’t do it.” Yildirim said she was worried people would judge her children because of what happened, the
Nevin Yildirim (right) and beheaded Nurettin Gider who allegedly raped her.
source said. “Now no one can call my children bastards,” she said, according to the source. “I cleaned my honor. Everyone will call them the children of the woman who cleaned her honor.” The source said Yildirim went to a health clinic a while ago seeking an abortion, but health workers told her she was 14 weeks pregnant and abortion was not an option.
Colombia’s ‘Queen of Cocaine’ shot to death
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RISELDA Blanco, a convicted drug trafficker who was once known as the “godmother ” and the “queen of cocaine,” has been shot to death by an unidentified gunman, police in Colombia said. Col. Mauricio Cartagena of Medellin’s metropolitan police said that the 69-year-old was killed at a butcher shop in the city on Monday.
be revenge or a settling of accounts.”
Cartagena said a man approached Blanco at the shop and fired before escaping on a motorcycle driven by another man. She died on her way to the hospital. He said the police hadn’t identified a firm motive for the killing, adding: “We don’t know why they killed her, but the first hypothesis would
Blanco was among the first Colombian women to traffic cocaine to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. She had been deported back to Colombia in 2004 after serving nearly 20 years behind bars in the United States for drug trafficking and three drug-related killings.
Griselda Blanco
L-r: Bishop Mrs Peace Okonkwo; second position winner Miss Chinaza Okoli; her colleague, both of Vivian Fowler College; her mother, Mrs. Bola Okoli; Mr Tosin Fagbewesa, VP Academics Vivian Fowler College at the 9th edition of Mike Okonkwo National Essay Competition for Secondary Schools with the Theme: Defence Of Nigerian Economy On Crude Oil:Any Alternatives, in Lagos. Photo: Biodun Ogunleye
She served three concurrent sentence after pleading no contest in 1998 to second-degree murder charges. Authorities said Blanco arranged three contract killings in 1982 that took the lives of toddler Johnny Castro and drug dealers Alfredo and Grizel Lorenzo. The child died when
bullets meant for his father, Jesus Castro, hit the boy instead, police said. She already had been serving prison time for cocaine trafficking when she entered her plea in the killings. U.S. authorities have described Blanco as a charter member of the “cocaine cowboys” who engaged in drug
trafficking, contract killings and gangland shootouts in South Florida in the 1980s. She was also once known for her love of shopping and beauty salons. Blanco was reportedly a fan of the film “The Godfather,” naming one of her sons Michael Corleone, the name of the character played by Al Pacino in the film.
Abducted mother of triplets in Abuja still missing •As kidnappers insist on N25m ransom
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BUJA-FIVE days into the kidnap of Mrs Justina Ekwu Nwakwe, nee Madu, a mother of triplets in AMAC Estate, Lugbe, off the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport in Abuja, the family is yet to reunite with her. Meanwhile, the kidnappers who only made a call to the husband on Wednesday are demanding a ransom of N25million before she could be released. Speaking with Vanguard on behalf of the family, Tobe Obechina said that Justina Nwakwe was abducted on Monday evening in front of her residence in phase two, AMAC Estate. According to a source, the kidnappers opened the gate for her to enter
and immediately drove away with her in her Sienna car with number plate DV 426 BWR. Her car was later discovered at a bush in Sabo Lugbe area when it rammed into a Mrs. Justina Nwakwe ditch and could no longer move, forcing the ago, but one of them died, men to drag her out, and leaving with the first leave with her in a hurry child who is three years to an unknown destina- old and the two now. tion. At the end of the day, The woman who hails her GSM handset, shoes from Achi, Orji River loand her handbag all were cal government Area, intact inside the car till the Enugu State works in the next day before the hus- Presidency and married band was called to come to Sir Rowland Nwakwe for the vehicle. Also found from Mgbowo in Awgu in the car were the caps local government area of the kidnappers. also from Enugu state and Mrs Nwakwe who has works with the Federal three children, had a set Ministry of Housing and of triplets nine months Lands.