Martyr Murat Kocatürk had gone to Turkmen Mountain 3 months before his death. Kocatürk dreamed of martyrdom his whole life and reached his dream on the night of July 15th. He left his house after the call of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He was martyred by putschist traitors in front of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipal building.
Martyr Murat Kocatürk, who was 35 years old and from Kayseri, was a father of 2, one 8 and one 12 years old. He worked at a shoe manufacturer. He was also interested in sports and knew karate, kung-fu and kick boxing.
“He was smiling, my pain went away”
The martyr was wearing a checkered shirt when he went to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipal building. His father Bayram Kocatürk was watching a live stream of the municipal building and saw someone with a checkered shirt get shot. His father describes the rest of the night as follows, “I felt he went there. You wouldn’t be able to stop him after he made his mind up on something. There was a livestream from the municipal building. I looked at people with checkered shirts. I thought Murat would be there as well. Somebody shouted “Someone is shot!” People started running towards the person who was shot. They were carrying someone with a checkered shirt but they said the name of the man and it wasn’t my son’s. I went to the roof of the building and prayed until the morning.
The martyr’s father felt ill after getting the devastating news. He said that he was relieved when he went to receive his son’s body from the Forensic Medicine Institution. Kocatürk said, “I went there. They showed me his face. I looked at him and he was smiling. I could see his teeth. His eyes were bright. In that moment, my pain went away.”
The martyr’s father said his son was a very fair person, people would even call him “Judge Murat”. Kocatürk went to the Turkmen Mountain in Syria to become a martyr 3 months before July 15th. Instead of in Syria, martyrdom found him in the city he grew up in.
The name of martyr Murat Kocatürk was given to an Anatolian Imam Hatip high school in Avcılar.
