LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Twenty-six-year-old Nevin Yildirim, the mother of two, lives in a small village in southwestern Turkey. Yildirim says that her alleged attacker, Nurettin Gider, began his assaults a few days after her husband left at the beginning of the year for a temporary job in another town.

Thirty-five-year-old Gider was the father of two children, 15 and 9 years of age, and married to an aunt of Yildirim's husband.

According to a source close to the case, Yildirim said Gider threatened her with a gun and said he would kill her children, both less than seven years of age if she made any noise. This began the series of rapes over the next eight months, the source said.

Yildirim said Gider at one point had sneaked into her house while she was asleep and took pictures of her. One of the pictures shows her pregnant body. Gider then threatened to publish the pictures if she didn't obey him, the source said.

Honor is held above all else in small Turkish villages, and women carry the burden of honor for their families. Pictures like those would have been devastating for Yildirim and her family and could have posed a danger.

At least five months pregnant by the accused, Yildirim said she decided she had had enough. Gider was climbing up the back wall of her house on August 28. "I knew he was going to rape me again," she said at her preliminary hearing two days later.

Grabbing her father-in-law's rifle, she shot him. He tried to draw his gun and she fired again.

"I chased him," she said. "He fell on the ground. He started cussing. I shot his sexual organ this time. He became quiet. I knew he was dead. I then cut his head off."

Yildirim then walked into the village square, carrying the man's head by his hair, blood dripping on the ground.

"Don't talk behind my back, don't play with my honor," Yildirim said to the men sitting in the coffee house on the square. "Here is the head of the man who played with my honor."

Throwing Gider's head to the ground, witnesses said. Video from Turkish broadcaster DHA showed Gider's head on the ground. Yildirim was then arrested after witnesses told authorities.

Yildirim has since expressed her regrets.

"I thought of reporting him to military police and to the district attorney, but this was going to mark me as a scorned woman," Yildirim said. "Since I was going to get a bad reputation I decided to clean my honor and acted on killing him. I thought of suicide a lot but couldn't do it."

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