A court has bafflingly decided to acquit a man accused of stabbing his fiancée to death with a glass shard.
Victim Anastasia Emelyanova was a feminist activist who campaigned against domestic violence.
Her fiancé Mohammad Nizar Arnabeh allegedly killed her during a heated row that ensued when he got home from work and refused to eat the dinner she’d made.
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The horror unfolded in the flat they shared in Erzurum, Turkey, on 21 September last year.
According to reports from the time, the couple had moved in together only about a month earlier after meeting through a dating app.
During their row, Arnabeh, 29, allegedly pushed Emelyanova, causing her to fall onto and shatter a glass coffee table.
He then allegedly grabbed a glass shard and plunged it into his 32-year-old fiancée’s left leg, severing a major blood vessel.
When Emelyanova was found, she had died from blood loss, as reported on Need to Know.
Over the course of the investigation, Arnabeh reportedly changed his version of events.
He reportedly claimed that the push was, in fact, an accidental bump before denying even being present at the time.
Arnabeh’s murder trial began in September and he faced a minimum of 30 years behind bars if convicted.
But the court in Erzurum bafflingly decided to acquit him due to “insufficient evidence”, local media reported on Monday (27 May).
Lawyer Begüm Osman, who is representing Emelyanova’s family, told local media: “We don’t yet know the reasoning behind this decision or if there are any dissenting opinions.
“We will see the detailed ruling within 15 days. Of course, we will exercise our right to appeal.”
Arnabeh is a Syrian national and Emelyanova was from Novosibirsk, Russia, but had moved to Turkey from Moscow, where she was living, in 2022.
As well as working in IT, she hosted the YouTube channel Feministki Pojasnjajut (Feminists Explain), which has 15,400 subscribers.
Emelyanova had told her friends in Russia that she and Arnabeh were planning to get married, despite their short time together.
She had called her fiancé the “perfect lover”.
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