An İstanbul juvenile court on Tuesday sentenced a 14-year-old identified only by the initials E.Ç. to almost 19 years in prison for fatally stabbing 17-year-old Atlas Çağlayan and threatening four other youngsters with a knife.
The Bakırköy 2nd Juvenile High Criminal Court imposed 14 years, nine months for the intentional killing of a child; three years, nine months for the threats; and four months, 15 days for violating Turkey’s weapons law.
The judges first sentenced him to aggravated life imprisonment for the killing but reduced the term under the rules in force when the crime was committed because he was 14 at the time.
Parliament passed a law in August allowing courts to sentence children aged 12 to 14 who are found criminally responsible to as many as 27 years and those aged 15 to 17 to life for some murders and other serious crimes.
The law took effect August 18 but could not be applied retroactively in E.Ç.’s case.
Human Rights Watch criticized the law, saying it lets courts punish children as adults and moves Turkey away from international child justice standards.
The court ordered E.Ç.’s continued detention and denied a reduction for good conduct, finding that his expression of remorse was aimed at securing a lighter sentence, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Prosecutors had sought up to 21 years, seven months and 15 days.
Çağlayan was stabbed three times in the chest on January 14 after a dispute between two groups that began inside a cafe in İstanbul’s Güngören district and continued in the street. He later died from internal bleeding at Bağcılar Teaching and Research Hospital.
The fight began after one group accused the other of staring at them, according to statements cited in the indictment.
The indictment found no evidence that Çağlayan and E.Ç. knew one another or had a prior dispute but said E.Ç.’s phone contained photographs of guns and knives.
Çağlayan’s mother, Gülhan Ünlü, criticized the punishment as too lenient and called for others involved in the confrontation to face trial, arguing that evidence had been concealed.
The killing sparked nationwide anger and debate over violence by minors, following the 2025 stabbing death of 15-year-old Turkish-Italian Mattia Ahmet Minguzzi, whose two teenage killers each received the maximum sentence then available of 24 years.
