The search for the suspect accused of killing 8 people – two of whom were school teachers – and injuring another in the province of Afyonkarahisar, in western Turkey, finally concluded with the arrest in the neighbouring province of Eskişehir of the alleged perpetrator of the massacre following a brief shooting with the security forces.
The suspect, identified as Arif Sefa Özdemir, aged 30 and divorced for two years from his wife – with whom he has a son – murdered eight people and seriously injured another during several armed attacks carried out at various locations across the Turkish province of Afyonkarahisar.
The 112 emergency services began receiving numerous calls reporting gunfire in the İhsaniye district yesterday evening. The attacks took place at three different locations; initially, six bodies were found in the villages of Ayazini and Kıyı; subsequently, two more women, both schoolteachers aged 31 and 46, were killed in the village of Yukarıtandır, bringing the total number of fatalities to eight. One further person was seriously injured.
The authorities identified the eight fatalities as Ahmet Uzel, aged 57; Bekir Toprak, aged 50; Noman Toprak, aged 56; Seydi Ahmet Aydoğmuş, aged 73; Satı Aydoğmuş, aged 68; İsmail Şen, aged 61; Hilal Mete, aged 31; and Ayşe Sena Demir, aged 46.
A dispute over a debt: the motive behind the murders
According to initial statements from local residents, the incident is believed to be linked to a dispute over a debt, during which the suspect had reportedly been assaulted earlier. After committing the crimes and fleeing – killing several more people along the way to steal their vehicles – the police managed to intercept the vehicle he was driving by shooting at its tyres.
After fleeing on foot through a wooded area, a brief armed confrontation ensued, during which the alleged killer opened fire on the police officers, slightly wounding one of them in the ear.
In his statement prior to his committal to prison by court order, the suspect confessed to having killed the first three people over a dispute relating to a combine harvester he had purchased, and the other five in order to steal their cars. According to the Turkish television channel NTV, his last two victims, both school teachers, were murdered after refusing to leave the car that Özdemir intended to steal.
According to his own account, Özdemir had bought a combine harvester from Ahmet Uzel last year for 40,000 euros. However, the machine suddenly caught fire whilst he was working in the field, which sparked a row between the two men.
Last week, Uzel had demanded the 11,000 euros he was still owed for the purchase of the machine; however, Özdemir replied that the outstanding amount was only 4,000 euros, assuring him that he intended to settle it shortly. The dispute over the amount of the outstanding debt grew in intensity until the two began exchanging insults and threats over the telephone.
This is how the killer planned the massacre
Eventually, both parties agreed to meet to resolve the issue. The suspect explained to the police that yesterday he had been drinking a large amount of alcohol from early in the morning before the meeting, and that before heading to the agreed location, he had placed a rifle and a bucket full of cartridges in his vehicle.
Özdemir reported that he met with several people at the entrance to the village of Gazlıgöl, supposedly to resolve the dispute over the money, and that he subsequently tricked them into travelling to a rural area of the village of Ayazini, situated some 12 kilometres further north, where he had decided to commit the murders.
Using the excuse that they had to go and fetch the money from somewhere else, the detainee told them: “Let’s go and get the money from my father’s house and also check on the fields.” On arriving there, however, he set his plans in motion: “I blocked their path with my vehicle to prevent them from escaping. I got out and stood right next to their car and fired twice at Numan and the person sitting next to him, aiming at their heads to kill them. Then I fired at the person in the back. When I saw him move, I fired again to make sure he was dead”, he confessed to the police.
After committing the murders in Afyonkarahisar, the suspect fled towards the province of Kütahya. During his escape, he explained that he tried to get hold of a pistol, as he felt the rifle he was carrying was too large to go unnoticed.
Apparently, during his escape, the alleged killer passed through several villages and in each one spoke to the muhtar (village head), introducing himself as an “inspector from Ankara” and as an “MİT agent (National Intelligence Organisation)”, in the hope that the muhtar would hand over his service pistol, although he did not succeed.
In addition to the sentence for causing bodily harm and other offences, the perpetrator of the massacre now faces life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for each of the murders committed if premeditation is proven, in accordance with the Penal Code of Turkey.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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