“If you’re not mine, you won’t belong to anyone.”
That’s what he said before throwing acid in her face.
On January 15, 2019, Berfin Özek was walking through the streets of İskenderun, Turkey, when her ex-boyfriend intercepted her and threw acid at her face.
She permanently lost her right eye. Her left eye was left with only 30% vision. Third-degree burns destroyed her face, neck, and chest. She was hospitalized for weeks and underwent multiple surgeries to reconstruct her eyelids and lips, while her attacker, Casim Ozan Çeltik, fled.
When he was finally arrested in 2020, he was sentenced to 13 and a half years in prison. Prosecutors had asked for life imprisonment. Even President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publicly questioned the sentence, considering it too lenient.
And this is where the story takes a turn no one expected.
In April 2020, Berfin withdrew her complaint. She wrote letters to the authorities saying she loved him and felt bad knowing he was imprisoned. Her lawyers resigned, stating that her decision contradicted everything they had fought for. Public outrage grew so intense that Berfin eventually reinstated the complaint, keeping the sentence in place.
But in December 2021, Çeltik was released early due to regulations passed during the pandemic. And as soon as he got out, he asked her to marry him. She said yes. They got married in a civil ceremony without telling anyone. Berfin’s father found out through social media.
“I did everything I could for her. She got married without us knowing. I fought for her for many years, and now all of this has been in vain,” he said.
Many people spoke about Stockholm syndrome. Experts in gender-based violence warned that the reality is more complex and difficult to judge from the outside. What no one disputes is that a story that began with a threat of possession ended exactly where that threat said it would.