Hackney<\/a> Turks gang accused his family of paying rivals Tottenham Turks \u00a3100,000 and demanded the same amount.<\/p>\nBeytullah Gunduz, 39, an alleged member of the Hackney Turks, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused over Mr Guzel\u2019s shooting. Giving evidence from behind a screen on Monday, Mr Guzel told jurors he had worked six days a week at the family restaurant Umut 2000 for 15 years.<\/p>\n
He was on a break, sitting outside on the phone to his wife at around 10pm when he heard a \u201cloud bang\u201d.<\/p>\n
He told jurors: \u201cIt was on the phone looking down to be honest and I heard a loud bang and I felt numb and I understood something was wrong with me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was this really loud pinging in my ear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing I done was I checked my chest and arms to see if I have been shot in the chest and arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cI lifted my shirt up and could see I had blood on my lower abdomen.\u201d<\/p>\n
People rushed out of the restaurant to help and two police officers provided first aid before Mr Guzel was taken to the Royal London Hospital for treatment.<\/p>\n
While still in intensive care, Mr Guzel requested police visit him so that he could tell them about two shooting incidents in the weeks before which he blamed on the Tottenham Turks gang, the court heard.<\/p>\n
Last April, his brother\u2019s house was targeted and then two days later, five shots were fired at the restaurant at 2am when there was no-one there, he said.<\/p>\n
The trouble dated back to November 2024 when Mr Guzel\u2019s brother had allegedly received a text message demanding \u00a3100,000 or \u201cthe heads will be blown off family members\u201d and an image of a gun.<\/p>\n
At the time of the shooting near his brother\u2019s home, his sister-in-law was pregnant, jurors heard.<\/p>\n
But the attackers did not know where they lived and got the wrong address, with bullets going through a neighbour\u2019s door, the witness said.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, Mr Guzel\u2019s father received a phone call now demanding \u00a3300,000 as the police had been notified, the court heard.<\/p>\n
His sister-in-law also received a text message allegedly saying: \u201cYou made it worse by letting the police know and now we are going to ask for more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to do another shooting. The next one will be your head.\u201d<\/p>\n
About a week after the initial shooting incidents, Gunduz approached Mr Guzel and asked what had happened, the court heard.<\/p>\n
The witness said: \u201cHe wanted to know what happened and who is doing it and I told him we gave it to the police and the police are dealing with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did not know who is doing this to us.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone is demanding money of us and that is why they are shooting at his house and the restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n
He went on: \u201cAfter I explained to him what happened, that we have given it to the police I was told by Mr Gunduz \u2018if you give the rivals money we will have problems\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked who he meant, Mr Guzel said the Tottenham Turks, who were the Hackney Turks\u2019 enemies.<\/p>\n
At a later meeting, Mr Guzel and his father were accused of paying \u00a3100,000 to the Tottenham Turks and were given a week to pay the Hackney Turks the same amount.<\/p>\n
His father had allegedly responded: \u201cI\u2019ve not paid any money and I\u2019m not going to pay you guys any money either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Jane Bickerstaff KC asked if the family had the money to pay such a large sum.<\/p>\n
Mr Guzel replied: \u201cWe could come up with the funds, but why should we pay someone money for what reason?\u201d<\/p>\n
Under cross-examination, Mr Guzel was asked if he had been \u201cconfused\u201d when he spoke to police in hospital.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI was not confused. I remember saying to them I do not know who shot me whether it was Hackney Turks or Tottenham Turks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was threatened by both parties. I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham Trembath KC, defending, suggested his client Gunduz was in fact a regular at the restaurant.<\/p>\n
Mr Guzel said: \u201cI have even served him myself. I would not say he was a regular regular but he would come in now and again and get food.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gunduz, from Hackney, north London, has denied conspiracy to murder and an alternative charge of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm.<\/p>\n
Keep up with the latest East London news. Sign up to our MyEastLondon newsletter HERE<\/a> for daily updates and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pregnant woman was threatened that gangsters would \u201cblow off\u201d her head before a man was shot outside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1023,70],"class_list":["post-6733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-turkiye","tag-crime","tag-turkish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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