Harun Erikçi was 31-year-old when he got married to H.N.T., an 83-year-old woman, in 2005. The Turkish man, who claims that she "proposed to him," is now at the center of an inheritance lawsuit, years after his wife’s death.
The original plaintiff was the woman’s sister, who said it is against the "natural course of life" for such a young man to have married her ailing elder sister. The plaintiff died shortly after the lawsuit but her children continue the legal battle. Erikçi, in return, claims it was not "a marriage of love." "She did not want her wealth to be inherited by her sister’s stepchildren. She wanted to leave them to me and told me she would find someone else to marry if I did not accept," he told Demirören News Agency (DHA) on Thursday.
He currently does not have access to the wealth as the court decided to freeze H.N.T.’s assets worth $2 million (TL 31.7 million) upon the plaintiff’s complaint. The plaintiff also claims Erikçi may have murdered H.N.T. to seize her inheritance.
Erikçi, who met T. in the apartment building she owned and lived in Istanbul, says she was a rich woman but was still "taking out her own garbage." "I noticed some people deceiving her and swindling her out of her money. I wanted to help her. We lived together for 12 years," he says. Their marriage lasted for five years, until H.N.T.’s death in 2017. One year before her death, her sister filed a lawsuit for the annulment of Erikçi and her sister’s marriage. "Her sister inherited half of her inheritance but her children wanted it all. My wife and her sister have not been talking to each other for the past 45 years," he said.
He claims that he never intended to seize the wealth of his wife. "She was diagnosed with dementia before her death and I was the official heir in her will but I never sold any piece of property she owned," he said.
The current plaintiffs, however, claim in their petition to the court that there is no explanation "other than financial interests," "for a 31-year-old man to marry an 83-year-old woman with dementia." They also filed a separate complaint against Erikçi on charges of murder though they did not specify the means of murder as H.N.T. had died of natural causes according to Erikçi.