Turkish-Dutch Mafia War Spills More Blood: Report

- The son of a Turkish man who had been questioned over alleged links to a recent series of mafia shootings in downtown Istanbul was killed in the Netherlands on April 26, Dutch media has reported.

Unidentified assailants raked through the speeding car of 26-year-old Barış Önder in Osdorp. The car stopped only after hitting parked vehicles, while Önder was killed and the assailants escaped in a dark colored vehicle late at night, the reports said.

The victim’s father, Atilla Önder, had testified in Istanbul as a suspect after two separate targeted hits in one day in upscale Istanbul neighborhoods left three people dead late Dec. 24, 2014.

Ali Ekber Akgün was killed when two men jumped out of a car traveling behind him and shot him in his car as he waited at a red light in Sarıyer’s İstinye neighborhood, while Vedat Şahin, the brother of known mafia boss Sedat Şahin, was killed in a hail of bullets along with a friend on Nişantaşı’s busy Vali Konağı Avenue.

Before the murder, Atilla Önder had been accused of threatening Akgün, who was also involved in real estate business with Dutch connections. After he testified, Önder had said “games are being played on his son.”

In January 2015, 44-year-old Okan Fidan was killed by two assailants in Amsterdam in a murder that officials believe could have links with drug trade.

Suspicions about an international mafia vendetta go even beyond Turkey and the Netherlands. Hüseyin Saral, the head of a gang that was at war with Sedat Şahin’s criminal organization, was found dead in Italy in 2005. Şahin and some of his accomplices were apprehended in the same year in connection with the crime.

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