{"id":90424,"date":"2011-04-28T15:07:19","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T10:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=90424"},"modified":"2011-04-28T15:09:29","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T10:09:29","slug":"turkish-armenian-conscripts-april-24-death-not-accidental-says-fiancee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/04\/28\/turkish-armenian-conscripts-april-24-death-not-accidental-says-fiancee.html","title":{"rendered":"Turkish-Armenian Conscript’s April 24 Death Not Accidental, Says Fiancee"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tragic death of an Armenian-Turkish private serving in the military on April 24 \u2014 the day of commemoration for victims of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 \u2014 could not have been an accident, as was officially claimed, the young man’s fianc\u00e9e has said, reports Sunday’s Zaman<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pvt. Sevag \u015eahin Bal\u0131k\u00e7\u0131 (25) died on Sunday<\/strong><\/span><\/a> when, according to official reports, his friend’s rifle accidentally discharged. The military said the two boys were \u201cjoking around\u201d with their rifles before the accident. Bal\u0131k\u00e7\u0131’s family said they believed the official statement, saying it was only a strange coincidence that their son died on April 24, which was also Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n

However, his fianc\u00e9e, Melani Kumruyan, does not believe that Bal\u0131k\u00e7\u0131’s death was accidental. In statements made to various Turkish newspapers yesterday, she said, \u201cAn investigation into this is under way. I want the truth to come out as soon as possible. I don’t think it happened when they were joking around. I knew Sevag really well. He was not someone who would joke around with guns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kumruyan and Bal\u0131k\u00e7\u0131, who both lived in the Kurtulu\u015f neighborhood of \u0130stanbul, met when they were 17 and got engaged with the blessing of both families two years ago. Kumruyan says Bal\u0131k\u00e7\u0131 sent her a text message every morning. She shared his last message with the Radikal daily, sent at 7:30 am on April 24. The intimate message says, \u201cParluys (Good Morning) my daisy-smelling angel. You never left me alone. Your clean heart is more important to me than anything else. I found happiness and love in you. I’ve never loved anything in my life as much as I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say it happened around 8 am I woke up around 9 that morning. He had sent me wonderful messages of love around 7:30, like he always does. I can’t express the immenseness of the pain. There were only three weeks left for him to come home,\u201d Kumruyan continued.<\/p>\n

The Sabah daily quoted her as saying: \u201cI don’t believe that it was an accident at all. The senior sergeant had beaten him up over a lost 50 lira bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Kozluk Criminal Court of Peace released the private who shot Bal\u0131k\u00e7\u0131 pending trial. The court said it didn’t see any premeditation or deliberate act in the accident. However, the Kozluk Prosecutor’s Office has criticized the release of the private \u2014 whose name was not disclosed \u2014 and filed for his arrest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The tragic death of an Armenian-Turkish private serving in the military on April 24 \u2014 the day of commemoration for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[25670,25669,25501,10222],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}