24.10.2026 23:42
Merve Uçanok, the lawyer of Tuğyan Ülkem Gülter, the daughter who was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for intentionally killing singer Güllü (Gül Tut), announced that they will appeal after the reasoned decision. Uçanok claimed that the conviction was based on witness Sultan Nur Ulu's statement, which she later changed, and on the criminal report, and that the prosecutor who examined the crime scene recorded in the minutes that the ground was slippery.
After the reasoned judgment was announced for the aggravated life sentence handed down to Tuğyan Ülkem Gülter, daughter of singer Güllü (Gül Tut), who died in the Çınarcık district of Yalova, her lawyer Merve Uçanok reported that they will appeal the decision.
In a statement on her social media account, lawyer Merve Uçanok recalled that on October 9, 2026, the Yalova 1st Heavy Penal Court ruled that her client Tuğyan Ülkem Gülter was convicted of intentionally killing her mother Gül Tut and sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment.
Uçanok, stating they had examined the reasoned judgment, argued that many pieces of evidence in the file were not credited and that the conviction was based solely on the later-changed statement of witness Sultan Nur Ulu and on the report of the Bursa Criminal Laboratory that no special substance capable of making the floor slippery was found in samples taken from the scene about one month later.
SLIPPERY FLOOR CLAIM
Arguing that the decision was unlawful, Uçanok said they would make detailed legal remedy applications. Uçanok claimed that in conversations among law enforcement officers who came to the residence where her client and her mother lived on the day of the incident, they made assessments that the floor was extremely slippery, and that the public prosecutor who examined the scene also recorded in the minutes that the floor was slippery. Uçanok stated that the statement of her client's brother, T. Hamza Yağız Gülter, also contained statements that there was a slipping problem on the floor of the house and that his mother had previously fallen due to slipperiness.
OBJECTION TO WITNESS STATEMENT
Uçanok argued that unjustified superiority was given to the statements given by witness Sultan Nur Ulu after a detention process in which she was under threat of losing her liberty and was not allowed to meet with her lawyers for nearly a day. Arguing that the witness's statement was not supported by concrete evidence, Uçanok claimed that it was unlawful to base the conviction on this statement, which she alleged contradicted the first three statements the witness gave within the scope of the file.
CALL FOR RESPECT FOR PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE
In her statement, Uçanok said they believed the higher courts would determine the unlawfulness of the conviction decision regarding her client, and she asked the public to respect the principle of presumption of innocence while the judicial process continues.