Village refuses to bury rapist killed in prison

Attempts to inter Ahmet Suphi Alt?ndöken, the convicted felon in the brutal rape and killing of 20-year-old-student Özgecan Aslan in February 2015, have precipitated a crisis after village residents locked the doors of their cemetery and refused to bury Alt?ndöken's body. 

Alt?ndöken, 27, was shot dead in an attack inside a high-security prison while his father, Necmettin Alt?ndöken, 50, was heavily wounded in the southern province of Adana on April 11.

"If they bury his corpse here, I'll take it out with a digger," Rifat Öcalan, the head of the Kocaköy village, said April 12.

"We don't want it. They [Alt?ndöken family] doesn't have any connection to here. Even their grandfathers didn't reside here. It didn't occur to us that the dead body would be brought here. We thought it would be buried in the cemetery for the nameless. No one will accept the body. If we took it, then they would be burying us with it," Öcalan told Anadolu Agency, adding that if a place to bury Alt?ndöken is not found, then it could be used as a cadaver for medical research. 

The gendarmerie took precautions in the village to prevent possible incidents stemming from the villagers' anger. 

Speaking about the burial crisis, Aslan's father, Mehmet Aslan, said the dead body should be buried due to religious considerations. 

"It doesn't necessarily need to be buried in a cemetery, but after all it needs to be under the soil. I don't know how they will find a solution," said Aslan, adding that it could be buried in an unknown place, without a tombstone. 

Alt?ndöken's body was sent to Tarsus via a car that was rented by his relatives, where they were told that the cemetery was full by officials. The body was then sent back to Adana under...