Assassination In Netherlands Linked To Turkey

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

RIJSWIJK, NETHERLANDS (Worthy News) – Police in the Netherlands are investigating the killing of a Turkish mafia boss who reportedly had images implicating politicians of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s party AKP with financial wrongdoing.

Cemil Önal, the suspected mastermind behind the murder of a gambling boss, Halil Falyali, in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus, was assassinated Thursday at the terrace of a hotel in the Dutch city of Rijswijk.

Witnesses said he was riddled with bullets at the Hoevevoorde hotel. A Turkish crime journalist reported that “he was silenced.”

Before the assassination, the victim was seriously threatened from several sides, according to investigators.

Önal provided documents to U.S. and Dutch intelligence services in exchange for protection as he would “certainly.”

The pro-AKP website Turkinfo wondered “why he was allowed to walk around freely in the Netherlands” after he was detained for 16 months “and was not deported to Turkey earlier.”

However, sources familiar with the situation said that would have meant facing execution.

EXPOSING SECRETS

Northern Cypriot journalist Aysemden Akin said Önal “was about to expose secrets” of the Falyali family, politicians, and government networks, “including links between the Turkish state” and the mafia, and illicit money flows.

Akin, a journalist at media outlet Cyprus Today, spoke to Önal over three days for a series of articles on murdered gambling boss Halil Falyali. The first part was published on 14 April.

The conversations took place under security, according to sources familiar with the case.

Önal told the reporter that even Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was “looking for the incriminating videos.” Fidan apparently sent an envoy to Northern Cyprus with the message: “Make sure you find those tapes, then you can make a career in the government.”

Of a total of 45 to 46 videos, 40 are now said to be in the hands of the Turkish state. The Turkish intelligence services are said to be still eagerly searching for five to six missing videos.

Government officials have denied wrongdoing. AKP politician Süleyman Soylu, who was previously linked to the mafia, reacted fiercely. “It is also said about me that there are tapes and that I admitted to it,” Soylu told an opposition leader. “I would have said to the people who are supposedly blackmailing me: ‘Why don’t you do anything with those supposed videos of people with the name Erdogan?’

The AKP member “wants to see proof as the stories are completely untrue.”

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