Two New York families endured the same ghoulish nightmare when the bodies of their deceased loved ones were lost, according to lawsuits. One Bronx family has accused Turkish Airlines of losing the …
Nagima Alzhan, here with her son Aidar BerlinBaye, said Turkish Airlines lost the remains of her husband Serik Berlinbayev.Two New York families endured the same ghoulish nightmare when the bodies of their deceased loved ones were lost, according to lawsuits.
One Bronx family has accused Turkish Airlines of losing the remains of their patriarch on the way to his funeral in Kazakhstan, while a Brooklyn clan charges their dead mother’s body was 11 days late to services in Puerto Rico. “I cannot talk about this without tears in my eye,” said Nagima Alzhan 63, whose husband Serik Berlinbayev died in a Bronx hospital in December 2019 from liver problems.
Nagima had immigrated to the United States in 2002 after winning a lottery for a green card, learning English and working her way up to become a registered nurse. Berlinbayev, who was a government official in their native Kazakhstan, joined her here in 2015, she said.When he died, Nagima paid $15,000 to a local funeral director to embalm the remains and arrange transport to their homeland, so Berlinbayev could have a funeral and be buried within seven days of his death, as per Muslim custom.
Berlinbayev worked as a government official in Kazakhstan until he joined his wife in the US in 2015.Berlinbayev’s body, which had been lost in Istanbul, was finally located but not until the family was forced to break the seven-day custom. Turkish Airlines didn’t apologize, she added. Nagima is seeking unspecified damages in her Bronx Supreme Court lawsuit against the airline.