Turkish DJ Mehmet Alpergin reassured girlfriend before torture death in London

The New York Post reports Mehmet Koray Alpergin, 43, and his girlfriend, Gozde Dalbudak, 34, were kidnapped by six men near London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on their way home from an Italian restaurant in upscale Mayfair on October 13, 2022.

They were taken to an empty wine bar, where Ms Dalbudak was blindfolded and locked in a dingy bathroom while Mr Alpergin was beaten, scalded with hot water and stabbed on his feet, a jury was told.

Even as he was being mercilessly tortured, Mr Alpergin tried to reassure his girlfriend, who had arrived in the UK three days earlier, according to Metro.

“My love, don’t be scared,” Ms Dalbudak heard her boyfriend calling out to her, prosecutor Crispin Aylett told the court.

“Sorry, my love,” she heard him call — before it was broken by shouting and screams of pain from Alpergin, who owned Turkish radio station Bizim FM.

Mr Alpergin’s harrowing final moments were detailed on Thursday in the trial of six London men charged with murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting justice.

The DJ’s naked body was dumped in the woods on October 15 and later discovered by a dog walker.

Ms Dalbudak said she had been struck in the face and knocked out by the thugs after being abducted. She spent almost two days locked up in the bathroom before she was released.

The court heard on Thursday that she had arrived in the UK from Turkey for the first time only three days before the deadly abduction.

“This had been her first, and no doubt last, visit to the UK,” the prosecutor, Mr Aylett, told the court, according to Metro.

“Ms Dalbudak went back to Turkey on October 21, 2022. Although she has remained in contact with police officers in London, she has not come back to the UK,” he said.

“Nor is she willing to do so for the purposes of this trial. Nor is she prepared to give evidence over a live link from Turkey.

“For perfectly understandable reasons, you may think, she wants to put the whole thing behind her.”

An autopsy revealed 94 injuries to Mr Alpergin’s body, Mr Aylett said.

“The prosecution allege that Koray Alpergin was kidnapped and tortured either so that he might be punished for something that he had done or else forced to give up something that he knew — perhaps the whereabouts of either drugs or money — and which his kidnappers also wanted to know,” he said.

“It is obvious that before his death, Koray Alpergin had been stripped naked and horrifically tortured,” the prosecutor continued.

“From the number and nature of the injuries sustained, the prosecution suggests that it is not hard to envisage a group of sadistic thugs taking it in turns to inflict injury, whether with punches and kicks, hitting him with a bat, scalding him with boiling water, stabbing his feet,” he added.

Jurors were told Mr Alpergin was not his usual “happy-go-lucky” self and seemed anxious before the abduction.

The Telegraph reported that he was also allegedly in debt, including around $62,000 just for his car.

Steffan Gordon, 34, Tejean Kennedy, 33, Samuel Owusu-Opoku, 35, Junior Kettle, 32, Ali Kavak, 26, and Erdogan Ulcay, 56, face charges of murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting justice.

Kennedy, Owusu-Opoku, Kettle and Kavak deny the murder, false imprisonment and kidnapping charges.

Gordon admitted to kidnapping but denied the murder and false imprisonment. Ulcay and Kavak deny the perversion charges. Owusu-Opoku admitted to it, according to the outlet.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission