"Two Kurdish German men accused of helping to kill their sister in 2005 because of her Western lifestyle were acquitted Tuesday in a Turkish court...."

The NYT reports (in an article by Patrick Kingsley).

A child of Turkish-Kurdish immigrants, Ms. Surucu was brought up in Germany before her father pulled her out of school and sent her back to her family’s ancestral village in Turkey, where at 16 she was forced to marry a cousin, according to German news reports.

After the marriage ended in divorce, she returned to Berlin and gave birth to a son, Can, but soon left her parents’ home to live as a single mother.

Prosecutors said that her conservative and religious brothers felt dishonored after she began refusing to wear a head scarf and started dating a German man. A German judge described the attack by Ayhan Surucu as “an ice-cold, execution-style murder.”...

A German court jailed Mr. Surucu in 2006, but acquitted Mutlu and Alparslan Surucu of involvement. A German appeals court later overturned the elder brothers’ acquittal, partly because of the testimony of Ayhan’s ex-girlfriend, who said they had helped him plan the murder.

I would like to see a more detailed explanation of the German court's opinion. The brother who shot the gun was convicted and imprisoned, and his ex-girlfriend implicated the other 2 brothers. I'm guessing her testimony was deemed unreliable hearsay and a violation of due process. [ADDED: Wait. I'm misreading this. I'm not used to seeing an appeal from an acquittal. The appeals court overturned the acquittal, so it seems that the trial court excluded the ex-girlfriend's testimony, and the appeals court said it could be used.]

But the two brothers were able to leave for Turkey, where they lived freely for several years.

In a German documentary released in 2011, Mutlu Surucu said his sister’s “lifestyle change” justified her murder. “Why does a woman need to dress up so prettily?” he reportedly asked. “Why does she need to go out on the town? To attract men.”

It troubles me to see a quote of the questions about the sister's behavior but not for the idea that Mutlu Surucu "justified her murder." To express understanding of the killer's motivation is not to be an accomplice to the murder.

These honor killings are horrible, but they shouldn't undermine our commitment to the rights of the accused.

I'm just trying to understand the article as printed in the NYT. I have to read between the lines, but I'm assuming the brothers were not retried in Germany because there wasn't enough evidence once the testimony of the ex-girlfriend was excluded. That's why they were able to leave Germany and "lived freely" in Turkey. [ADDED: I'm wrong here. We don't have an answer to why Germany didn't do a new trial. Perhaps the ex-girlfriend's testimony was not that promising.]

Why did Turkey prosecute them? Was it because of the documentary? Was Mutlu Surucu prosecuted because he expressed an offensive opinion about women dressing prettily and going out on the town?

The NYT article, at first glance, looks sober, but it's actually — in a low-key way — sensationalistic. And it shows the unfortunate tendency to disregard the rights of the criminally accused whenever it's too much trouble or a distraction from the attitude chosen for the article. [ADDED: My criticism of the NYT was based on my misreading of what the German court's did, so I'll say it's too strong. But I would like more detailed reporting on what courts have done and consistent regard — even when you hate the crime — for the rights of the criminally accused.]