A 40-year-old man, Hakan Aysal, has been jailed after luring his pregnant wife Semra Aysal to the edge of a cliff for a selfie and waiting until they were alone to push her to her death in 2018.
Hakan, who killed his pregnant wife by shoving her off a cliff edge when posing for a selfie has been jailed for 30 years.
Police suspected 32-year-old Semra Aysal’s fall was no accident when they saw Hakan Aysal behave weirdly beforehand in a witness’ video taken at the beauty spot.
Aysal’s motive became clearer at the discovery of him immediately cashing in £21,700 of life insurance from his late wife’s tragedy.
Semra was seven-months-pregnant when she was lured by her husband to the edge of a cliff in Butterfly Valley, southern Turkey in June 2018.
Chilling pictures of the couple show Aysal taking a selfie with Semra just moments before she died.
Prosecutors claimed that the only reason they sat on top of the cliff for three hours was so that he could make sure no one was around, and as soon as he realised they were alone, he deliberately killed her by pushing her off the cliff.
Witness Recep Sahin told The Fethiye High Criminal Court: “I stopped there to see the view of Kabak Bay with my family.
“My daughter was filming the view with my phone and the Aysal couple came down the slope at that moment.
“We even joked, ‘either this man will throw the woman off or the woman will throw the man’. There was no interaction between them.”
In a video interview, the court heard from the victim’s brother, Naim Yolcu, who said: “When we went to the Forensic Medicine Institute to get the body, Hakan was sitting in the car. My family and I were destroyed, but Hakan did not even appear sad.”
He added: “My sister was always against taking out loans.
“However, after she died, we learned that she had three loans taken by Hakan on behalf of my sister. Also, she had a fear of heights, what extreme sport is she going to be doing when she is scared of heights?”
Asked about the questionable insurance premiums, Aysal said: “I have been interested in extreme sports since 2014; parachute, bungee jumping, rafting. That is why I had life insurance before I got married.”
Aysal was also asked about the article in the accident personal insurance stating that “in case Semra Aysal dies, her heir will be husband Hakan Aysal. In case Hakan Aysal dies, his heirs will be family relatives”.
Aysal said: “I did not examine the policy much. The banker arranged the paperwork. I just brought it to my wife to get it signed. I was not aware that there was such an article.”
