A husband who pushed his pregnant wife off a cliff just moments after taking a smiling selfie with her has been jailed for life for her murder.
Hakan Aysal, 40, shoved 32-year-old Semra Aysal off a 1,000 foot cliff at a beauty spot Butterfly Valley, in the Turkish province of Mugla, in June 2018 - just a short time after taking some photographs with her.
This week, Fethiye High Criminal Court heard how victim Semra - who was seven months pregnant - had been horrifyingly killed by her husband so he could selfishly cash in on a life insurance policy he had taken out.
A last-minute insanity plea by Aysal was also made, but was rejected by the court after medics had confirmed that he was of sound mind when he carried out the killing.
The court was told that he lured his wife - who was afraid of heights - to the very edge of the sheer drop on the pretext of taking a selfie with her, before shoving her off it.
The couple actually sat on the slope for about three hours before the defendant pushed his wife off the cliff when there was nobody in sight, report infoBalkans.
Suspicions were raised that Aysal pushed Semra off the rock face after photos of the couple were shared in news reports, which jogged the memory of another tourist. Chilling video footage was shot by the passer-by which shows Aysal and his wife scrambling down a rocky landscape to the edge.
Following the horror incident, the husband then shockingly tried to pocket a £40,000 insurance payout from a policy he took out a short time before she died.
But police were alerted to the suspicious death when Aysal tried to claim the money - days after his wife perished.
An indictment prepared by the prosecutors against Aysal for "premeditated murder" was accepted by the Fethiye High Criminal Court. Part of the charge read: "In line with his plan, the defendant took out personal accident insurance on behalf of his wife, with a guarantee of 400,000 liras [£18,576.00], with the sole beneficiary being himself".
The 40-year-old was told at an earlier hearing that he must serve at least 30 years before he can be considered for release by judges at Fethiye High Criminal Court, southern Turkey.
But he was hauled back to court on October 24 so his life sentence punishment could be confirmed, where during the trial witnesses told how Aysal was 'completely calm' as he flagged down help.
Sait Erturk, a passing driver who was stopped by the husband, described him as 'carefree'. He added that the husband did not come with the search party to look for his wife's body.
Mr Erturk told the court: "I was driving there and when I saw someone was waving at me, and I stopped. Hakan came and said that his wife had fallen down the cliff.
"We immediately got out of the care and started looking for her, but we couldn't see where she would have landed from where we were.
"We tried to get closer to the edge for a better look. Hakan did not come with us down there. We stayed there until the gendarmerie arrived.
"Hakan was very carefree and calm. He was not acting like a man whose wife had just fallen off a cliff."
Aysal's life sentence sentence was confirmed at the Fethiye High Criminal Court on 25th October.
