Turkey suspect 'held for Ramadan'

The prime suspect in the killing of two women in Turkey may be held in prison until the end of Ramadan.

A prosecutor has been appointed to oversee charges over the stabbing to death of Marion Elizabeth Graham and Kathy Dinsmore.

Young Turkish waiter Recep Cetin, whose true age is not known, is likely to be held in custody for at least another week as the Islamic holy month ends on August 30.

The women’s bodies are expected to be repatriated to the North tomorrow after private arrangements were finalised with funeral directors in Turkey.

Investigators are trying to establish Cetin’s date of birth after he claimed he was only 17, but he appears much older.

Prosecutors have raised doubts over his age and if older he would be treated as an adult if charged with the double murder. Jail terms for a guilty murder conviction stretch up to 36 years.

Shannon Graham, Ms Graham’s daughter, and the mother’s former partner Raymond McGuinness returned home yesterday.

The two women, both aged 53 and from Newry, Co Down, were murdered in woods 75 miles north of the holiday resort of Kusadasi last Thursday.

A private company will organise flights out of Turkey and transport to the family homes.

Sources have said the killings happened after Ms Graham refused the waiter’s proposal to marry her daughter. The two women suffered multiple stab wounds, including having their throats cut, and their bodies were discovered in a forest near a graveyard to the east of the port city of Izmir.

While no formal charges have yet been brought against Cetin, police sources claim he has already confessed to the murders.

It is believed he admitted to the killings under interrogation, after first concocting a story the women had been kidnapped.

But the process of establishing his age could hamper future court proceedings.

In parts of Turkey, particularly the south-east of the country, it is not uncommon for births to be officially registered a number of months, sometimes years, after the birthday.