Four charged as accesories to teenage girl's murder

An Istanbul prosecutor charged four people on Friday with aiding the primary suspect in the brutal murder of a teenage girl.

The suspects are accused of being an accessory to Cem Garipoğlu, who is being detained for allegedly murdering his girlfriend, Münevver Karabulut. Garipoğlu surrendered to police Sept. 17, 197 days after the crime first made it to the headlines.

The accused, driver Ahmet Batur, Burgaz Rakı Procurement Manager Mehmet Karakayalı, Burgaz Rakı Sales Manager Habib Kurt and Burgaz Rakı Regional Director Hakan Çiçek, are all employees of the Garipoğlu family.

Since Cem Garipoğlu’s surrender, police have been investigating how the 17-year-old suspect could have eluded capture for over six months.

The Doğan news agency reported Friday that three of the four people in custody admitted under police interrogation that they picked up Garipoğlu from the family house on the night of the murder and took him to an apartment in the Beylikdüzü district.

Batur, who works as a driver for the suspect’s father, Mehmet Nida Garipoğlu, said he was called by his employer at 10 p.m. and told to pick up the suspect. Nida Garipoğlu came to the house hours later, told him to forget everything he saw and took the son away, he said.

The elder Garipoğlu was taken into custody at 3 a.m. that night and was later arrested. He was also questioned on Thursday, the report added.

The murder of Karabulut has received unprecedented coverage in the media and prompted demonstrations since March when the victim's decapitated head and body were found dumped in a garbage container.

The police had come under fire for failing to catch the suspect amid widespread accusations that Cem Garipoğlu's family, one of Turkey's richest, organized his escape and financed him in hiding.

Garipoğlu is accused of killing his girlfriend Münevver Karabulut just four days before her 18th birthday after taking her from school to his family's luxury villa in a wealthy Istanbul suburb. Karabulut was stabbed several times and her head was cut off with a saw.

Her body and head were placed in a suitcase and a guitar case, which Garipoğlu allegedly dumped in a garbage container in central Istanbul, according to the testimony of a taxi driver who took him there. The motive behind the murder remains unclear.

The girl's father, who has led a vocal campaign for Garipoğlu's capture, has alleged that his daughter may have been the victim of a Satanist ritual. The Garipoğlu family has been vilified for seeking to cover up the alleged crime after police established that their villa was cleaned up after the murder, although traces of blood remained