The Perpignan Assize Court sentenced a 47-year-old man to 28 years' imprisonment on Wednesday March 1 for having killed his partner in 2020 with a bullet to the head, in their accommodation in Boulou (Pyrénées-Orientales).
Fatih Ataoglu, 47, who pleads the accident, was found guilty of murdering his spouse and sentenced to 28 years in prison, along with a ban on possessing a weapon and staying in two departments for 10 years .
On the evening of January 23, 2020, while he was intoxicated and had consumed cocaine, he shot a rifle at his partner, Valérie.
Aged 47 and mother of four children from another union, she had been hit in the forehead and died of her injuries.
"Domestic violence"
The accused always pleaded the accident, saying that he unwittingly activated the rifle he was lubricating.
“The shot went off on its own.
(…) I would never have hurt him
,” assured Fatih Ataoglu during the trial.
A defense undermined by the ballistic report and several testimonies, including that of an ex-girlfriend with whom he had a child.
"I see myself again with my big belly wiping my blood on the ground
," she told the court on Monday, describing
"domestic violence"
.
“I had met this woman
,” she added, saying that she had then advised Valérie to leave
“before it was too late”
.
"My mother dared not say anything, he had turned her brain
," said one of the victim's children on Tuesday, describing a relationship of influence with a violent man.
The accused, already known to the courts, would have killed his companion
"because she wanted to leave him"
, estimated Wednesday the representative of the prosecution, requesting against him 30 years of criminal imprisonment accompanied by a security sentence of 20 years, with prohibition to hold a weapon during 15 years and to appear in Ain during 10 years.
