A senior member of the Hackney Turks organised crime group has been jailed for life for organising the shooting of a rival gang associate outside a Turkish restaurant in east London.
Beytullah Gunduz, 40, was convicted of conspiring to murder Onur Guzel, 38, who was shot in the torso outside his family’s Umut 2000 restaurant in Dalston on June 20 last year.
Gunduz denied the charge, but was found guilty following a trial. He refused to attend the sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey on Friday and was jailed in his absence, with a minimum term of 20 years.
His barrister, Miranda Moore KC, said he had been “too frightened to attend in person” because he feared being attacked.
Shooting outside Dalston restaurant
Jurors heard that Gunduz had demanded £100,000 from Mr Guzel in the weeks before the shooting, after wrongly accusing his family of paying the same amount to the rival Tottenham Turks gang.
Mr Guzel was working at the restaurant when a gunman fired from a Kia Niro. CCTV showed him screaming as he lay on the pavement after being hit by a single bullet.
The shooter, Dogan Over, fled to Istanbul on June 25 and has not returned. Gunduz was not in the car but was said to have been in the area assisting Over.
People ran from the restaurant to help, while two police officers gave Mr Guzel first aid before he was taken to the Royal London Hospital.
Sentencing, Judge Mark Lucraft KC said the injuries were “permanent” and “irreversible”. Mr Guzel is living with a stoma bag while awaiting an operation scheduled for this month.
Reading from a victim impact statement, the judge said: “The attack did far more than injuring me physically. It has altered the course of my life. It has taken my sense of safety.
“I’m trying every day to put the pieces back together but the truth is I am no longer the person I was before this happened.”
Mr Guzel had told jurors that he felt numb after the shooting and discovered blood on his lower abdomen when he lifted his shirt.
Prosecutor Corinne Bramwell said the motive was financial and that Gunduz was “at the heart of extorting Mr Guzel and indeed the local community”.
Feud between Hackney Turks and Tottenham Turks
The court heard that Mr Guzel’s family had been caught up in a long-running feud between the Hackney Turks and Tottenham Turks.
Gunduz himself had been targeted in a shooting ordered by the Tottenham Turks in May 2024. A nine-year-old girl was struck in the head by one of six bullets fired from a passing motorbike as she sat with her family at the Evin restaurant in Dalston, where Gunduz had been minutes earlier.
Javon Riley, 33, was later jailed for life with a minimum term of 34 years for causing grievous bodily harm with intent to the girl and attempting to murder three men. He had acted as a spotter and getaway driver.
Mr Guzel told police while he was in intensive care that his brother’s home had been targeted the previous April, followed two days later by five shots fired at the restaurant in the early hours when nobody was inside.
In November 2024, his brother received a message demanding £100,000 and threatening that “the heads will be blown off family members”, accompanied by an image of a gun, the court heard.
After police were informed, Mr Guzel’s father, who co-owned the restaurant, allegedly received a further demand for £300,000. A message to his pregnant daughter-in-law warned: “We are going to do another shooting. The next one will be your head.”
Judge Lucraft said the attack was another retaliatory act in the conflict between the two gangs and an example of someone outside the feud suffering life-changing injuries.
He said the shooting had been motivated by financial gain and by a demand that businesses on the Hackney Turks’ perceived “patch” pay up.
Gunduz has previous convictions dating back to 2008, including offences involving an offensive weapon, drugs, threatening behaviour, assaulting a constable and twice damaging a roulette machine after losing money.
In mitigation, Ms Moore said Gunduz accepted that his “life choices” had left his parents without his support and that he would live with the “shame” of that.
