The man who chopped off his wife’s head while their six children were home may not be held criminally responsible for his actions due to mental illness. Click below to read the rest of the story.
Orhan Sircasi, 32, who confessed Tuesday to killing his wife the day before, was admitted to a private psychiatric clinic on judge’s orders, Berlin district attorney spokesman Martin Steltner told the Berliner Morgenpost.
It is likely that Sircasi’s criminal liability in the death of his wife will be extremely limited, Steltner told the German-language newspaper.
If further tests are able to confirm that Sircasi suffers from severe mental illness, the confessed killer will most likely face extended institutionalization rather than a prison term.
An autopsy found that Sircasi’s wife, Semanur, 30, died of multiple knife wounds in the chest, according to Die Welt.
After her husband stabbed her to death, he severed her head and left breast, the Frankfurter Rundschau reported.
New reports have also shed light on the argument that preceded the brutal crime.
In the week before her death, Semanur saw her husband with a woman he had allegedly been having an affair with for years, along with two children he is said to have fathered with his mistress, the B.Z. newspaper reported.
Though she had known about the affair for some time, seeing Orhan with his “second family†moved her to confront him about it, sources who knew the couple told the Berliner Morgenpost.
Later that evening, Semanur reportedly told Orhan she wanted to separate from him, according to the Morgenpost, sending him into a murderous rage.
About 300 people gathered in the courtyard of the couple’s apartment building Tuesday to mourn the mother of six. Several men wore T-shirts with slogans denouncing domestic violence.
“Only a madman could do something like this,” a neighbor who witnessed Semanur’s death told the Frankfurter Rundschau.
